


In the Ruin of Greatness

by Corycides



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: F/M, Kinkmeme prompt gone astray, Space marines and mafia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-08
Updated: 2013-02-03
Packaged: 2017-11-20 15:18:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 27,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/586786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corycides/pseuds/Corycides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only opportunity for a kid like Miles Matheson on Ruin was to get away. When that was taken away from him, Miles decided that if people weren't going to give him any chances, he'd take what he needed. No matter who got in the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The was originally a fic for a prompt suggesting Miles and Bass were in the mafia instead of the militia. Only in my brain, they're in space.

There had been a city on Ruin before the human colonists ever set foot there. An abandoned, black labyrinth filled the hollow shell of the planet with vast cathedrals and moebius corridors that hummed dissonant harmonies when the wind blew. And the wind always blew on Ruin. The only evidence of alien life ever found, and humanity stopped up the singing tunnels so they could built tenements in the vast cathedrals and bubble-protected suburbs on the barren surface.

That's where Miles Matheson had grown up, running wild in the branching tunnels of the Gutters with his gang. He was 15 before he set foot on the surface, enlistment chip itching in the back of his hand as it worked its way down between his bones. That walk from the Gates to the transport was an unofficial psych test as far as the military were concerned. Take 30 Gutters-brats and stick them outside on a cool, crisp day, between 8-10 of them would drop with the screaming ab-dabs. In the Gutters, even if you couldn't see the ceiling you knew it was there. Outside, there was nothing between you and a juddering fall into the sun.

It didn't get you a discharge. Chips were 10 tours, 10 years. There were plenty of jobs in the military that meant working in a cubicle and never seeing outside. Just not in the drop-crews or the marines. They spent most of their time falling in one direction or another.

Miles had been ok, after Bass kicked him in the ankle to make him move. It turned out to be a family trait, the Mathesons were good with expanses. Ben just had his own way to find a bit of sky to stand under.

***

Civilians got to ride out descent in Way-drugged sleep, strapped into cushioned beds that monitored their every hiccup and fart. They didn't know a thing till they woke at the bottom, sipping fortified juices and joking about 'survival'. Marines got strapped to the inside of the hull, legs braced as they rode the bullet down through Ruin's battering atmospheric storms. Energy stuttered along the seams and between men's fingers, lighting up their bones, before grounding with a crack.

Miles grunted when he was thrown against the straps and back into the hard wall, jarring his lungs against his ribs. The old break in his shoulder grated and groused to life at the treatment, prickling pain down the nerves into his fingers. A boot kicked against his and he looked up to find Bass grinning at him. It wasn't quite up to his usual make-the-girls-giggle grin. The side of his face was still raw, all meat and muscle under the stiff layer of healcrete.

'Think they'll roll the red carpet on when we land?' he yelled, leaning it to be heard over the thumping roar.

Miles grunted. 'Not unless we land on some poor sod.'

'Cheer up, man,' Bass said, shoulder jostling against Miles. 'You're home. When we got stuck of Eidolon Station last leave, you wouldn't quit whining about coming back.'

'I'm surprised you heard, with your head stuck between that hooker's thighs,' Miles jabbed back.

Bass ignored that cheerfully in favour of poking his finger right in the middle of Miles' sore spot. 'Come on, Matheson, he's your brother, is it really going to be that bad to catch up with him?'

That was the main problem with Bass. He'd known Miles too damn long and too damn well.

'You want to spend a month with him?' he asked sourly.

It wasn't like he didn't love his family, which these days consisted of Ben and his lemur-eyed kid. Stuck in a bunk on Eidolon he'd moped over what he could have been doing if he was home – catching up with his brother, spoiling the kid, catching up with old friends. Faced with the prospect of actually doing any of that, he remembered that he'd be fielding Ben's 'subtle' suggestions about other jobs and having to convince the frosty wife that he wasn't going to shot the kid in the head.

'That's OK,' Bass said. 'I got plans involving a finding a gambling den with lots of naked girls to make losing less hurtful.'

Yeah, right. Miles had known Bass just as well, long enough to know when he was talking balls. The only family Bass had were the Mathesons, whether he wanted to admit it or not.

'I already told Ben you were coming,' he said. 'He's made up a room.'

'What am I going to do at your brothers?' Bass protested. 'He lives in the Dirt, all there is to do is gardening and going to dinner parties.'

'I don't know,' Miles said. 'Charm the frost out of my sister-in-law's knickers?'

'I suppose it would pass the time. She pretty?'

Miles glanced side-long at Bass. 'Prettier than you right now.'

'Huh, yeah.' Bass poked his jaw with one finger, healcrete squishing against raw skin. 'Bet she still likes me more than you.'

Miles just rolled his eyes. That was a sucker bet if ever there was one. Under his hips he felt the juddering kick of the engines sucking air. Grimacing he hooked his hands into the straps and spread his feet wider. This was always the worst part. He grunted as gravity kicked back and slapped them down into the webs.

Ground-side Miles grabbed his seabag out of the hold, slinging it over his shoulder, and rolled his sleeve up as they headed to the check-point. Bass smarted off to the med-tech before his vac-shot as usual – 'So, will this cover me against the clap?' - and got a double-jab for his worries. Miles just held his arm out, clenching his jaw through the shot, and flexed his fingers as he waited for the burning ache to pass.

'You're both on Terminal Leave,' the med-tech said, checking the readings. 'Not re-upping? If you need medical support or advise I can sign you up for the vet-services?'

'I'm re-upping,' Miles said, smoothing his sleeve back down. 'Just don't wanna let my family know yet.'

The med-tech looked surprised, quirking a brow and rechecking his data. Most soldiers who signed up on Ruin were lifers, it was the best opportunity they had. Bass laughed.

'His brother works for Gestalt,' he said, naming the terra-forming company that owned the outer mile of the planet. 'Ben figures Miles has “options” other than getting his ass dropped into war-zones at terminal velocity.'

The tech shrugged, ticked a box and waved them through decontamination. It was procedure. Even though the Ganymede plague had been 20 years ago, the planet-bound were paranoid about letting germs into their eco-system. Particularly where the military were involved, since they did a lot more travelling than most. Even though it was all ionic baths and nano-filters, it still kinda felt like being tossed in a sheep dip.

Finished – skin prickling clean down into the follicles – Miles stepped out onto the dusty, shifting surface of Ruin. The wind hit him like a hand, shoving grit into his ears and sucking the breath out of his lungs. He coughed and tugged his filter up over his mouth, black nanofibre sealing itself over his mouth and ears.

Bass had been smart enough to pull it up before stepping up. Even through it, Miles could see him smirk. He gave his friend the finger and they trudged towards the Gates. Night on the town, Miles figured, then they could rent a buggy and head to the Dirt.

A man should celebrate his first night of liberty in 10 years, especially when it wasn't going to last that long.


	2. Chapter 2

 Habit twitched Bass awake at 4:30 in a grey-walled motel room with a sick hangover, throbbing knuckles and a sticky blonde clutching his cock in her hand. It took him a second to remember that the events of the night before had happened pretty much in that order. Two bottles of still-brewed whiskey in the Den, a tatt-marked gang that didn't want 'gygenes looking at' their girls and a dancer that didn't mind going beyond looking.

With both of them. His cock twitched vaguely against her fingers at the memory of her body driven down hot and tight on his cock as Miles thrust into her from behind, his face buried against her neck.

He peeled her off him and rolled her over so he could sit up, scrubbing a hand over his cropped down scalp and sniffing his armpit. The smell made him grimace. It was after effect of the vac-shot, washing dead toxins out of his system, but that didn't make him stink any less. He crawled out of the bed over Miles and padded naked into the tiny bathroom cubicle.

It wasn't much – you had to piss on your feet while washing your hair – but hot water and cheap soap was still a luxury. Bass scrubbed the stink and dried fluids off him and stood under the hot water. What the hell was he doing going out to the Dirt to spend a month with Miles' egg-head brother?

Nothing against Ben. He'd been an ok guy, even bailed Bass out of juvie along with Miles a couple of times because he knew there was no family to front for him. And good for him that he'd managed to turn those brains of his to something other than killing people or brewing Viral for the drug dealers.

It was just that Bass couldn't imagine himself himself belonging out in Ben's world. He was the sort of guy that fucked blondes in grubby motel rooms and got black-out drunk in illegal gambling halls. Not the sort who slept on spare guest beds and talked to housewives about...hell, he didn't even know what housewives talked about.

He slapped the water off and padded back out into the room. The girl had rolled over onto Miles, hooking her knee up over his hip. Bass leant over and slapped her ass, cupping the tattooed swell of flesh appreciatively. The sound made Miles grunt awake, cracking one eye open.

'Hey, sweetheart,' Bass said as Miles yawned. 'Room's yours till 9, but we gotta shift.'

She scrubbed her wrists over mascara-lumpy lashes and rolled onto her back, arching her lean body in a stretch that rippled from fingertips to toes. She paused mid-arch, all muscle and tight, toned flesh, and pouted at him.

'You sure you gotta go?' she asked, cocking a pierced brow.

Bass bit his lip, tempted, as he ran his eyes appreciatively over her. But...

'Duty calls,' Miles said, standing up. He scratched his balls absently and squinted at Bass. 'You done your face yet?'

Bass gave him an irritated look. 'Gonna do it now, Dad. Go get ready.'

While Miles headed for the shower, Bass stepped into his trousers and tugged them over damp skin. He sat down on the edge of the bed and gritted his teeth, picking at his cheekbone until he found the seam. His thumbnail caught, he set his jaw and peeled. It felt like pulling back a nail, the same resistance and pressure-pain as the skin gave. Then it scraped loose, sloughing off his face in one stiff, opaque piece. He folded it over and tossed it in the bin. Once off his skin it would break down into goo, breaking up his DNA and its DoD copyright composition.

Without the anaesthetic gel his face started to tingle and then burn as the air poked at raw flesh and naked nerve-endings. Sweat broke on him, running down the back of his neck, and his fingers trembled as he pulled the dressing out of his pack. He sliced his thumb on the edge of the seal and the DNA strip went blue and shrivelled, splitting the pack open. Try and open it without his blood and it would degrade, open and not apply it to his skin and it would degrade.

He was lucky. If he'd been on an active campaign there'd be no time for this sort of regimen; if he'd been discharged already he couldn't afford this sort of regimen. Since he had a month of Terminal Leave, however, he got to get his face back as good as new.

'What happened,' the dancer asked, propping herself up on one arm. 'It looks like a burn.'

_It was cold on Mist. You didn't need anything but the environment to apply pressure tactics. Bass hung from the wall, throbbing hands tied above his head, and tried to breath ice vapour. It burned his throat like bad booze and made his lungs cramp when it hit them. How long had they said it would take for permanent damage? How long had he been here._

_The door cracked open and the rogue agent came back in, respirator frosted and a length of cold-smoking metal in a gloved hand._

_Fuck. Fuck._

_'All you need to do is tell us the location of your drop,' she said. Quite pleasantly really. 'I'll kill you quick.'_

_'I bet your lovers fuck you quick to get away,' Bass cracked. His brain cycled frantically through his options, always grinding back to 'Where the fuck are you, Miles?'_  

_The rogue sighed and pressed the metal to his face, holding it long enough for the cold to soak down into Bass' bones. It chilled and burned, his fillings cracking in his jaw. The pain made him spasm, a scream trapped behind clenched teeth. He thought nothing could hurt more, then she ripped the bar free._

_As a kid he'd ripped a layer of skin off of his lip eating an ice. This was...deeper._

_The woman scraped his face off the metal against her boot. 'In a minute they'll match,' she told him._

_He told her to 'fuck off', although it didn't sound anything like it. Hell, right now he could probably tell her where the drop was and she'd not have a clue. It didn't matter, she was already heading for the door. He always had a knack for ticking people off._

_'Think about your choices while I'm gone,' she said, opening the door. Her head exploded, splattering the walls with chunks of brain and blood that was already crystallising. Miles kicked her over and stepped over the corpse._

_'About fucking time,' Bass mumbled._

'I walked into a door,' he said, pressing the healcrete in place. It adhered and the flare of pain immediately started to fade, numbness spreading into his lips and hairline.

'Boring,' she said rolling onto her back. 'I thought two gygenes would be more...exciting.'

He leant over and dropped a light kiss on her pouting mouth. 'We're just two gutter-brats come home, baby.'

She huffed and flopped back on the bed, reaching over her head to the tap the screens on, watching the news while Miles scrambled into his clothes. On their way out the door the image flicked to a blasted crater on a green plain. It took a second for the eye to process the scale, then you realised that the shrubs at the edges of the char were trees.

Habit made both men pause, waiting for the background info. The cool-faced newscaster identified it as a key rogue base on Ygritte. Then the dancer flicked the focus to a different node and they left her to it.

'There will be retaliation,' Miles said, scowling, as they caught the lift down.

'Probably,' Bass said, leaning back against the rail and crossing his arms. 'Not our problem though, not till we re-up.'

Miles shoved his fingers through his still wet hair, sweeping it back from his face, and stared uncomfortably at the doors. 'You staying in then?'

'What you think?'

'You've not talked about it.'

Bass shrugged. 'What'd I do here without you, man? I'd be found face-down in an alley in a month.'

Silence for a second, Miles huh'd and shifted his weight. 'Dead?' he asked.

'Either way, I ain't enjoying it.'

He laughed and they were past the feelings and everything was ok again.

*****

There was nothing much to see out in the dirt. A few bent, wiry plants, a lot of dust and rocks and sparkling bubbles full of transplanted suburbs and artificially supported flora. And Bass and Miles had known each other too long to need to fill the silence with noise. Bass dozed most of the way, head propped against the window, while Miles read and tapped his fingers on his thigh.

An officious voice woke Bass up. 'And the purpose of your visit?'

He sat up and rolled his head from one side to the other, cracking his neck. A guard was leaning over to peer into the buggy, mouth pursed in disapproval. Miles scratched his head.

'Visiting my brother,' he said. 'Ben Matheson.'

The guard sniffed – all 'that's a likely story' – and went to check the access list. After a long minute, and a call, he reluctantly buzzed them in.

'You're right,' Bass muttered, cracking the hood and swinging long legs out of the low-slung buggy. 'I feel so welcome.'

Miles rolled his eyes as he programmed the buggy to head back to the depot. 'If the nasty man hurt your feelings, I'm sure he's sorry,' he said. 'Come on.'

They strode through the narrow, manicured avenues to Ben's neat, pod-white house, standing awkwardly on the too-narrow path as Miles hit the intercom.

'Yeah?' a distracted voice said.

'Ben, it's me,' Miles said. 'Um...'

There was a high-pitched shriek over the comm. 'Uncle Miles! Uncle Miles! Uncle Miles!'

It faded and Ben laughed. 'Charlie's coming to let you in,' he said. 'She's pretty excited to meet her Uncle Miles.'

The door swung open automatically and a little blond girl came barrelling down the hall. She got to within about a foot of the door and skidded to a halt, almost visibly tackled by shyness. Her thumb popped in her mouth and she stared at them with ridiculous huge blue eyes.

'Um, hey,' Miles said, nodding to her. When she just stared he gave in and crouched down to her level. 'You're Charlie, right?'

The kid shook her head, thumb not budging, and Miles gave Bass a flummoxed look. Yeah, Bass wasn't helping him with this one. He just grinned and shrugged, gesturing for Miles to keep trying.

'I got nothing here, kid,' Miles said. 'Throw me a bone.'

'Charlie,' a woman, who Bass assumed was Rachel, said coming down the stairs. She was pregnant and apparently that was Bass' thing – because he swore he'd never seen anyone so hot. Rachel put a slim hand on the kid's head and nudged, 'Be polite. Say hello to your Uncle Miles.'

The thumb finally popped out of the mouth. 'No.' Charlie turned and buried her face in her mother's leg. Rachel bent over and lifted her up, balancing her on her hip. She smiled wryly.

'She's just over-excited, you're all she's been talking about for a week. Come on in, Miles. It's nice to meet you.' Blue eyes turned to Bass and she smiled. 'You'd be Sebastian, right? Ben's talked about you.'

'Yeah,' Bass said, feeling a sudden pang of sympathy for the kid. 'I...I hope it's ok, me rolling up?'

'You're Ben's family too,' she said generously. 'Besides, Ben said that Miles would cut and run in three days if you weren't here.'

'Five,' Ben protested, appearing at the top of the stairs. He didn't look much different than Bass remembered, shoulders a bit more hunched and face a little more worried. 'I definitely gave him at least five.'

The couple traded an affectionate, comfortable look and for the first time he could remember, Bass hated someone over a woman.


	3. Chapter 3

The disassembled virus hung in the air in front of Rachel picked apart its genetic code with her fingernails. 70 miles below her feet, in a seamless white lab, a waldo nanite mimicked the nip and tug of her fingers. For the first time in days her brain was calm, picking through the complexity of the disease with detached interest.

She supposed that there weren't many people who found reverse-engineering Noah viral load's calming, but virology was predictable. Usually. More so than people.

'Rachel!' Ben yelled, making her pause mid-gesture. 'I'm off to gestalt with Miles.'

He didn't wait to say goodbye, slamming the front door behind him. Rachel took a break, the pause making her notice the twitchy ache in her tendons, and rubbed her fingers absently. It was too late though, her calm was already fraying around the edges. With a sigh she waved a hand, saving her work and storing it for later.

It wasn't going to work, Ben's bread-crumb trail of 'casual' hints and opportunities. Rachel could tell from the distance in her brother-in-law's eyes as he nodded and smiled and drank their beer. He'd re-up, and she worried about what would mean for Ben. They were already arguing. Ben kept poking at her until she'd say 'it's Miles' choice' and then it would be off. He was worried and he felt responsible - when Miles signed up at 15 Ben hadn't been able to offer him anything to make him stay, not like now – but Rachel was still tired of it.

She unfolded her legs, feet tingling as the blood seeped back into them, and struggled to her knees. It was a lot more difficult than a few weeks ago, the shift of gravity and extra-weight throwing her off-balance. Maybe she should think about bringing a chair in here.

Warm hands caught her around the waist as she wobbled, steadying her. 'What do you think you're doing?' Sebastian asked sharply.

'Getting up,' Rachel snapped, and felt guilty almost immediately. It wasn't his fault she was frustrated, and he was a guest after all. Even if he didn't seem particularly happy to be out here. In the last few days, she thought that was the most he'd said to her. She smoothed her annoyance over with a half-explanation. 'I keep forgetting sitting down is the easy part.'

He hmphed, sounding a lot like Miles, and lifted her easily to her feet, like she didn't weigh an entire extra half-cooked person. She laughed in surprise, catching at his arm as he set her down.

'Thank you,' she said. 'I should keep you around.'

Under her fingers, hard muscles flex and his fingers tightened just a little against her hips. Rachel was suddenly, unexpectedly, aware of the hard, male presence of him at her back. Heat unfurled like a flower in her stomach. She took a deep breath – soap and male and the antiseptic tang of healcrete – and moved her hand, prudently stepping away from him.

'Any time,' he said, looking...the same as always. Cool and controlled, pale eyes distant behind the pleasant mask of his face. Of course, he did. Rachel rubbed her hand over the hard swell of her stomach. She looked like she'd eaten a beach-ball, hardly any man's dream girl.

Not that she wanted him to notice her, she reminded herself. It was just hormones.

'I thought you'd gone to Gestalt with Ben and Miles,' she said.

He shrugged. Rachel's hormones decided to notice that they were very nice shoulders and she mentally swatted herself. She liked academics with gentle hands, not tough guys with scabbed knuckles who couldn't string a sentence together.

'If you want to use the screens go ahead,' she said. 'I added your voice-prints to the house security when you arrived, so they'll recognise you. I should have said.'

A scowl crossed his face, startling her back a step. 'If you want rid of me, you just have to say.'

He turned and walked out, door hissing shut behind him. Rachel hesitated, caught between wanting to avoid her unexpected attraction and the urge to apologise for upsetting him. It was Ben who decided her. If Sebasti0na left, Miles would follow. Rachel didn't want to be responsible for that. She didn't think Ben's plan was going to work, she couldn't imagine Miles in a security uniform, but if he didn't play out then Ben would never believe that.

She found Sebastian in the guest room he was sharing with Miles, sprawled out of the bed reading. The twisting curl of awareness didn't catch her off guard this time, but she was rather embarrassed to realise she was surprised to see him with a book.

'That's not what I meant, that I wanted rid of you' she said, leaning against the door. One hand made slow, self-soothing circles on her stomach as she talked. That was one reason why she worked from home. She couldn't break the habit, and it made it far too easy for people in the lab to tell when she was upset. 'I just...thought you'd rather do that.'

His mouth twisted sourly. 'Because what does a dumb grunt marine have to say, right?'

Rachel started to apologise again, but stopped herself. Fair enough, she was here to sooth hurt feelings and she had – maybe – thought something along those lines, but he didn't know that and he wasn't exactly blameless. 'That is the most words you've send to me in one go since you got here,' she said. 'Sorry if I took that to mean you'd rather do something other than talk.'

He rolled to his feet in one smooth movement and crossed the room, grabbing her arms. Rachel flinched, chest tightening.

'No, you're right,' he said. 'I don't wanna talk.'

'What are you doing?' Rachel asked. She braced her hands against his chest. 'Sebastian?'

He tilted his head to the side and leant in, close enough she could feel his breath but not close enough to touch.

'I wanna kiss you,' he said, sounding detached. Cool. That was usually Rachel's trick, the calm in the centre of the storm. No wonder it annoyed people, she thought absently. His hand slid down her side to her thigh. 'I want you to wrap your legs around my waist and I want to see all that cool composure come apart when I fuck you on your very nice guest bed and up against the wall and over the counter in the kitchen.'

Rachel thought she should probably be scared. They were alone in the house – Ben and Miles wouldn't be back for hours, Charlie wouldn't be back from her friends for a while – and he was dangerous. Except it didn't sound like a threat.

'You're scaring me, Sebastian,' she said carefully, pressing gently against his chest.

Blue eyes searched hers. 'No I'm not.'

'You will, in a minute.'

He kissed the corner of her mouth, a fleeting brush of his lips, and stepped back. The unmarred side of his face had a flash of colour over his cheekbone. 'I don't want to scare you,' he said. 'Just...maybe you don’t wanna hear what I got to say? You're my best friend's sister in law and all I want is you under me.'

She shook her head. 'I'm pregnant. I'm married.'

'I don't care,' he said, letting her see the hunger on his face. 'You're beautiful, Rachel. The most beautiful woman I've seen.'

'Liar.'

'Sometimes,' he admitted. 'Not now, not to you.'

Rachel closed her eyes. She should go. This was stupid, dangerous, impulsive and nothing like her. She was none of those things. Rachel Matheson was always in control, of herself if nothing else.

His hand brushed her hair back from her face, strands catching on callused fingers, and she felt her resolve crack like a shell. She turned her head and kissed his palm, mouth wet against faintly sweaty skin.

'Rachel,' he breathed, suddenly very still. 'Be very sure.'

Of what, she wondered. That she wanted him, this hard, dangerous man she didn't even know? Or that she was maybe (probably) doing this as a way to punish Ben that he'd never, ever know about – because none of this was his fault? Or that, just this once, she didn't want to be sure. And if he didn't take up her up on her offer, none of that would matter because her nerve would break.

Luckily (unluckily?) he curled his hand around the back of her neck and pulled her in for a kiss. His lips were hot against hers, scalding, and his hands crawled hungrily over her body, finding the tender curve of her breasts and the narrow lines of her hips. She pressed against him, hungry to get closer than her belly would allow, and stroked her hands down from the heavy line of his shoulders to his lean waist.

He growled raggedly against her mouth as her fingers spread over his crotch, his erection rising to push against her palm. She rubbed him through the thin fabric, her fingers tugging at him, as she ran her fingers curiously over his cropped down hair. It tickled against her palm, like fuzz.

Bass pulled his mouth away from hers, ignoring her mewl of disappointment, and dragged her over to the bed. She baulked a little, brain throwing up all sorts of embarrassing pregnant sex mishaps, but he tugged her down into his lap. His cock pushed insistently against her bottom, but Sebastian didn’t seem to be in a rush.

‘I wanted to do this since I first saw you,’ he said, shoving her top up over the swell of her belly and her breasts. Her breath caught as he ducked his head to suckle her nipples through the stiff lace. Her breasts were tender enough that touching them almost hurt, but that just tangled in wanting him. The hot flick of his tongue, the scratch of lace, made her shudder and squirm against him. Her hands caught his shoulders, fingernails digging in hard muscle until it had to hurt. ‘I was so hard I could hardly walk.’

‘Really?’ she asked dubiously. ‘I’m huge.’

He smirked, she could feel it against her skin. ‘I’ve fucked fat birds before.’

Rachel spluttered with laughter, surprising herself. She wasn’t exactly desensitized to how people looked at her body. At the lab she’d made a technician cry because he’d said she ‘looked ready to pop’. She supposed it was hard to yell at someone who was touching your body like it was art.

‘Now I feel bad,’ she said, rubbing her hand over his head again. ‘I’ve never slept with a bald man before.’

He gave the upper slope of her breast a gentle bite in retaliation for that (careful not to leave a mark she realised), and rubbed his hand down over the tight curve of her stomach. Guilt twisted somewhere inside Rachel, a mean, impotent little helix of it, but it seemed too late to pay any heed to it now.

His hand slid under the loose waistband of her trouser and down between her thighs. Callused fingers rubbed over her wet folds, sliding down until he could delve inside her. His thumb pressed against the nub of her clitoris, while his fingers stroked inside her. Arousal stirred lazily between her thighs, the ache of it puddling low there and sliding down into her thighs.

Each slow thrust of his hand spread her wider and wetter, the rub of his thumb going from a prickling pleasure to an unbearable throb. She rocked against him, his fingers slipping deeper and his cock rubbing against her backside.

‘Sebastian,’ she begged, voice gone thread and aching.

He kissed his way up to her jaw, tugging at her lower lip with his teeth. ‘I like it when you call me that,’ he said, fingers pressing into her. She whimpered, feeling like a clock wound too tight. The dark want of it twisted up into her chest, stealing her breath.

‘Please?’ she said.

She felt him shudder, muscles just as tense as hers clenching under his skin, at that. He lifted her carefully and twisted around, laying her down on the bed. Breathless, she twisted her hands in the sheets as he tugged her trousers down. Warm lips, faintly scratchy with stubble, kissed the tight muscles in her thigh, teasing his way to the crease of her thigh. His tongue lapped at the fine skin there, sending sparks of heat flaring through her abdomen.

‘Oh, God,’ she gasped. 

Sebastian laughed, breath cool against her hot, wet skin. ‘I like it when you call me that too.’ His mouth – finally! – pressed against her sex. His tongue circled her clitoris, never quite touching, and she had to bite her tongue against calling him something he wouldn’t like. The press of his tongue inside her make her twist – he had to curve an arm over her hip to hold her in place – and whimper.

She was ready to scream with he finally found his way back to her clitoris, suckling gently on the aching bundle of nerve endings. His teeth scraped the tender skin lightly and his tongue pushed and pressed on it until she came shuddering under him. It washed through her like a wave, dragging her under in a dark, swirl of pleasure so intense it took everything else with it. Rachel was lost in the unexpected violence of it.

When she dragged herself back, Sebastian was sprawled over her thighs and staring at her stomach with an uncertain expression. She felt the flutter-bump of the baby moving and felt exposed, like she’d made the poor thing a voyeur.

‘Is that it?’ Sebastian said. ‘The baby?’

He went to put his hand to her stomach but hesitated, glancing uncertainly up at her for approval. It made him look oddly vulnerable, this rough, scarred marine. She probably shouldn’t, it was another little betrayal, but she nodded.

He pressed a hand flat to her skin and waited, laughing in delighted surprise when a kick thumped his palm.


	4. Chapter 4

Bass sprawled behind Rachel, his arm hooked under her belly, and his cock lying wet against her thigh. The smell of sex was thick in his nose and he wondered idly how to explain that to Miles. A mid-day wank sounded kind of ungracious – he was a guest – but explaining he'd fucked the sister-in-law sounded worse.

Under his arm, Rachel shifted and took a deep breath. Bass pressed a kiss against the nape of her neck, licking the sweetness of her skin. 'Trying to work out how to do the walk of shame through your own house?'

It was meant to make her laugh, that startled blurt of amusement that lit up her face, but she just went stiff and uncomfortable in his arms. Regretting it, them. Anger hissed in Bass' gut and he kissed the soft curve of her shoulder to make her squirm.

'Don't worry about it,' he said, rolling out of bed. He gathered up her clothes from the floor and held them out to her, sleeves dangling limply from his fist. 'It was stupid.'

She levered herself up and took the clothes, hugging them to her chest. Long blonde hair hung loose and tousled around her remote, beautiful face and she looked up at him with thoughtful blue eyes. He wanted to kiss her until she flushed pink and went unfocused, all breathy little sounds and fingers clutching at him. It was stupid how much he wanted to do that.

Instead he grabbed his clothes and stalked into the bathroom to let her get dressed in peace. He ran cold water into his palms and splashed it over his head and down his back. Then he scrubbed his scarred hands until the smell of her was gone from his fingers and that bubble of anger had deflated enough that he could admit he was right. It had been stupid.

Rachel didn't want to lose her husband, her life here, and Bass didn't want to lose his best friend. Without Miles he had nothing, no-one. Because it wasn't as if he could make it work with Rachel. A month out here in the Dirt and he'd have fucked it up and sent her running back to Ben. And he couldn't imagine her in the Gutters, all that perfect, blonde beauty down in the sweaty dark with the rest of them.

It had been stupid. Bass was still disappointed when he went out and all that was left of her was the smell on the sheets.

****

Dinner that night was awkward. Ben and Miles had argued, somewhere out there in the Dirt between Gestalt and the house, and hardly had a terse word to say to each other. Neither did Bass and Rachel, but no-one seemed to have realised the silence was different than it was before.

The only talking was Charlie, who swung her legs under the table and regaled them with a non-stop retelling of her day that kept folding back in on itself. Apparently her friend's mum had a real cat, a real live cat from earth, a fe-lion that had made a big impression on her.

'I saw a lion once,' Bass told her, leaning over the corner of the table.

Charlie gave him a sceptical look. 'No.' She really liked that word.

'Yeah,' Bass said. 'It was when we were evacuating Keefe. One of the rich guys that lived there had a zoo.'  
She twisted her mouth dubiously and squinted. 'Really?'

'Uh huh. It was huge, bigger than me.'

Charlie forgot herself enough to take a drink of her fortified soy-lk, wiping her sleeve over her mouth. Apparently the story was convincing enough she'd give him the benefit of the doubt.

'Did you evac-u-ate the lion?' she asked, carefully repeating the unfamiliar word. 

'Sure,' Bass said. Well, sort of. He'd shot the huge tawny thing and taken a gene sample for it to be re-grown on the rich guy's new home. It had seemed a shame, it was beautiful, but there was no room for it on the transport and the rich guy wasn't going to give the rogues the pleasure of killing it. 'Miles got to pet it.'

They both had, lingering out of curiousity. It had been dead at that point, but still warm. The fur hadn't been as soft as Bass had imagined; it was dense and coarse. Probably not the sort of detail you give a kid though. 

'No,' Charlie said, frowning across the table at Miles. 

Miles nodded and swallowed a mouthful of food, waving his fork. 'We saw a rhino too and a camel.'

He regaled her with almost true stories of the zoo, lingering on the monkeys. They had actually gotten away, mostly because none of them could be bothered trying to tag and shoot the 50 screeching, leaping, scrabbling gits. 

Charlie listened, huge-eyed and enraptured. When Miles took a break to grab a drink, Charlie twisted around to Ben.

'I'm gonna be a marine when I grow up,' she blurted.

Annoyance tightened Ben's mouth into a thin line and he got up. 'Great work, Miles,' he snapped, scooping up his squirming daughter. 'Made your point.'

He stalked out of the room, doors whisking open and closed around him. Even heavier silence dropped over the table. Rachel bit her lip and her hand dropped to her stomach, patting fretful circles over the baby. Despite his best intentions – well, they weren't that good – Bass dropped a heated gaze to follow the trail of her fingers.

Awareness pulsed through his groin in a heavy tug. Her fingers went still and he looked up, catching her eyes on him. She looked flustered for a second, biting her lower lip, before pulling everything back under control.

'I'll talk to him,' she said, standing up. She looked over the table at Miles with pleading eyes. 'He just wants to be able to-'

'Save me?' Miles asked when she hesitated. 'I don't need saved, Rachel. I'm re-upping, not selling my lungs on the goblin market.'

'He worries,' she said.

Miles shook his head in frustration. 'That's the thing, he doesn't need to. I'm good at what I do. Better than I'd be scanning goddamn employee passes at a door, and that's all Gestalt would hire me for. You know it. It wouldn't even be an important door.'

Rachel twisted her mouth, looking very like her daughter. She couldn't argue. Gestalt hired from the Gutters, but for every Ben there were 100 poor sods doing grunt work out in the wind. Ruin wasn't as inhospitable as Mist out there, but the surface wasn't a good place to go. People heard voices in the moaning from underground or just sat and breathed in the dust till it choked them.

'I'll talk to him,' she said, not sounding particularly confident. 'Just listen to him? Even if you don't agree.'

She left without looking at Bass, although he could feel the weight of her not looking on his skin, and he shifted in his seat, trying to relieve the ache in his groin. He watched Miles jab vengefully at his plate, scraping the food into a paste.

'Do you wanna drink?' he asked. 'I stowed a bottle of that whiskey in my bag.'

Miles looked up, the dark scowl on his face lifting. 'Fuck, yeah,' he said, pushing the chair back. 'And here was me thinking we'd have to hike back to the Gutters to get pissed.'

Four shots into the bottle and Miles grunted and turned his glass upside down. 'That's revolting.'

Bass shrugged and tipped the last of his glass down his throat. He'd had just enough to get maudlin, self-loathing muttering in the back of his head that it was no wonder Rachel couldn't wait to get away from him, and he was planning to drink himself past it. Two more glasses, he figured. While he poured himself another glass, Miles leant back, folding his arms behind his head.

'Kid'll be 14, 15? next time I see her,' he said. 'Too old to care about lions.'

'Maybe she'll sign up,' Bass suggested. 'You could end up her commanding officer. Second thoughts?'

Miles grimaced, curling his lip in annoyance at himself. 'No,' he said. 'Just wanted this to go better, you know?'

Yeah, Bass turned his glass in his fingers, it hadn't exactly gone to plan for him either. Bad as he wanted Rachel, the last thing he'd want was to risk his friendship with Miles. 

There was a distant crack that made both men shift on the bed. It sounded familiar, but not here. Ruin wasn't a war zone. A bright light flashed through the windows, scouring the room, and the ground shuddered and jumped under them. The walls cracked with a brittle noise, windows twisting, and a childhood-bred panic clamped down on Bass' stomach.

Ruin was a hollow shell of a planet, a brittle crust held together by alien honeycomb. The idea of it cracking, moving, was every Gutter-brat's nightmare.


	5. Chapter 5

Charlie was crying. It was a dreary, whining soundtrack to the night. Miles had tried to pick her up but she'd gone stiff and and uncooperative as a little blonde doll. She stuck to her mother like a limpet, dragging along with her while Rachel fussed over their 'emergency supplies'.

A torch, a first aid kit and bottled water – it wasn't Miles idea of emergency supplies.

'What happened?' Ben demanded again, staring out the window into the night. Where usually you could see dozens of lights from neighbouring bubbles, tonight there was either darkness or fire. 'It can't have been geological. The readings have been excellent...'

'Fuck's sake,' Bass snapped, eyes gone vicious with impatience. 'It was an attack.'

Ben shook his head, face set stubbornly. 'That's rubbish. The rogues have no reason to move against us. It's been some sort of accident.'

Miles caught Bass' attention and warned him off with a shake of his head. He knew his brother and Ben wasn't going to listen. This sort of situation was an out-of-context problem for him – human error was much more likely culprit than human malice in his world. Eventually he'd have to accept it, once the evidence piled up, but for now there was no point arguing with him.

'Whatever caused it, we need to get to the Gutters,' Miles said.

Rachel bit her lip and dropped her hand to stroke Charlie's hair, twisting the fine strands around her fingers. 'Is that necessary?' she asked. 'Whatever it was, it seems to be over now.'

'We're vulnerable out here,' Miles said. 'Even if it's just an accident, everyone knows the rich people live in the Dirt and this will have knocked out the security measures.'

'Looting?' Ben protested, turning around. 'That's hardly a reasonable concern.'

Rachel hesitated.

'Go pack a bag, Rachel,' Bass told her, voice losing its edge. 'You have Charlie to think about, and the baby. Better safe than sorry, right?'

She bit her lip and glanced apologetically at Ben. 'It can't hurt, Ben.'

Still tight-mouthed with annoyance, Ben reluctantly pushed himself away from the window in surrender. He gently pried Charlie off Rachel and hoisted her up, balancing her on his hip. Her whining kicked up a pitch, but she didn't fight him.

Something niggled at Miles for a second, but he didn't let himself look at it. Bass had always been good with civilians, especially women, in situations like this. That was all. While Ben and Rachel were packing, he dragged Bass outside to check Ben's buggy. The low-slung Ges-D was the top of the line, all sleek glastic lines laid over a wire-frame, but right now Miles would have preferred the clunker they'd arrived in. It had felt solid, and he'd seen those things get up-ended over rocks and keep going.

It was usually hermetically sealed silent in the bubbles – Miles had been assured he only imagined the hiss of pumped in air – but he could hear a tea-kettle squeal of the wind tonight. The bubble was cracked. The sales pitch claimed that didn't matter and the bubble would maintain cohesion with anything under 50% surface damage. Miles was pretty sure that was crap. He'd seen bubbles collapse on other planets. They were essential on some, a sign of indulgence on others. All it took was one crack that spread.

'I can't see anything moving out there,' Bass said, boosting himself on the buggy's hood. It rocked under his weight and he shifted, finding his balance. 'If this is retaliation...one strike would make their point.'

Miles clenched his jaw. 'They're my family. I'm not willing to risk it.'

'They'll have hit the port,' Bass said, still staring towards the horizon.

'You don't know that.'

'It's what we'd do.'

It was, too. Miles sighed and braced his arms against the plastic curve. If the port was destroyed there'd be no landings. Not on a climatically and geologically compromised planet like Ruin. It was already a bad ride down, with no grav-cradle to catch the bullets it would be worse.

'Fuck,' he muttered, then shook his head and pushed himself off the buggy. 'Fine, we'll worry about that once we're secure. Go check on them?'

Bass jumped down off hood and loped off inside without arguing. Alone Miles turned his torch on to check the tires and top up the water splitter with fuel. He reached through the driver's side window and popped the hatch, dropping to a crouch to examine the nest of tubes, solder and chips that made up the engine. As he stripped out the safety over-rides something scratched the back of his neck. He reached back and rubbed his neck, bringing away fingers stained with blood and sparkling grains of dust.

Shit. He punched the torch to high and aimed it up, light reflecting off the bubble overhead. It picked out the scrapes and cracks spreading through the internal matrix, and the cloud of dust slapping against it. There hadn't been a big Dirt-storm since before Miles was born. Gestalt boasted their terraforming tech had stabilized the mantle enough they were no longer a problem. Apparently the rogue attack had destabilized it.

Miles watched the dust roar past and chewed his lip, re-evaluating the evacuation. He didn't know how long the buggy would function in these conditions, or how well. Last time the bubbles had been safe enough, scoured opaque but with minimal internal damage. Except the shells were already compromised, in an hour they'd be a snow-globe of dust and the houses weren't built securely enough for that.

He heard the others coming out of the house and flicked the beam down. No point in freaking out Ben until it was too late to change his mind. Bass was already suited up, severe black uniform starkly out of place in the suburban garden, and had all the bags slung over his shoulder. Ben was carrying a still-whinging Charlie and Rachel was managing her bump.

'Get it on,' Bass said, chucking Miles suit to him. 'I'll get 'em settled.'

Miles stripped down to his skivvies quickly, ignoring Ben's muttered 'Jesus' as he covered Charlie's eyes, and yanked the slick black material on over sweaty skin. Once on it bonded to his skin, sealing tight at wrists and throat, and the heavy armour pads aligned themselves over his vital organs and joints. Not exactly full battle-armour, but good enough to keep you ticking through a brawl.

'How bad is this?' Rachel asked quietly once he climbed into the car. The three of them – four, he supposed - were squashed into the back seat. Miles glanced back at her, meeting those steady blue eyes. He'd never liked her much – she was too cool for him – but she was family.

'Don't know,' he said, gunning the engine. 'Until we do – I'm taking it seriously. You'll be alright.'

'We won't let anything happen to you,' Bass promised, slamming his door.

Ben, looking like he was starting to believe this was happen, put a reassuring arm around Rachel's shoulders. 

‘Will they even let us leave?’ he asked. ‘There are emergency lock down procedures that go into force when anything happens? Most of our Gestalt employees, some of have –‘

He hesitated. Rachel finished. ‘Access,’ she said. ‘Information, technology. They don’t want us grabbable.’

‘You think they’d rather you were dead?’ Miles asked, starting the buggy. 

‘Probably,’ Rachel said.

Miles snorted. ‘Well, I guess that job opportunity will be closing up after tonight then,’ he said, gunning the buggy. Without the inbuilt repressor it yowled like a stepped on cat, power thrumming through it until you could feel it against your feet. 

It zipped through the streets, taking the turns tight enough that Bass braced his arm against the door. The security guard tried to wave them down but fuck if Miles was stopping for a rent-a-cop with an up-market taser. He blasted through the stop point, the guard jumping out of the way at the last minute, and the auto-key on the dash bleeped the lock open.

They went skidding out into the wind, the dust-thick gusts slapping at the side of the buggy like hands. Miles swore under his breath and wrenched at the controls as they fishtailed across the road and up a bank.

‘Son-of-a-bitch,’ Bass contributed, reaching back to steady Rachel against the seat. ‘What did they hit us with?’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Ben said, shoving his hand through his hair. ‘Whatever it was, it damaged the ion-net that Gestalt’s been using to reclaim the surface. This is like...water if a levee breaks.’

The storm did move like water, full of currents and buggy-tipping rip-tides that spun back of themselves. Miles grimly wrestled the buggy along the road, shoulders aching at he threw his muscle against the wind. He was so focused on the few feet ahead he was trying to steer into that he’d no idea why Bass suddenly swore and grabbed at the controls.

He let go instead of fighting, trusting Bass had good reason. It saved their lives. In front of them the ground had turned into a dry river, pouring into a sucking, spinning pit. The flowing dirt tugged at the buggy, trying to drag it along with them.

‘It’s a sink-pit,’ Bass yelled, just squeezing the buggy by the edge of the pit. ‘I thought they were just old-timer stories to freak kids out about exploring.’

‘Guess not,’ Miles said grimly. He wiped sweat off the back of his neck and grabbed the controls again. After a quick glance to make sure the road ahead was clear as it could be, he glanced around at Ben. ‘Can Gestalt fix this?’

‘Yes. Of course,’ Ben said confidently. Then he rubbed his head and looked around at the storm-driven devastation. ‘Eventually.’

They drove past two other bubbles on their way to the nearest Gate. One had cracked in two when the quake hit, half disappearing into a vast sink-hole. The other was opaque, sanded down by the storm, and screaming with alarms.

Miles didn’t stop, even when Rachel protested. It might be hard, but they didn’t have the equipment to worry about anyone else. They were close enough to the Gutters to see the storm-dimmed flicker of lights when a spinning pebble cracked in and through the glastic hood of the car. Fractures splintered out from the impact, but the big problem was the dying whine of the engine. Miles managed to wrestle it another few foot, but then it dropped with a thump and the wind shunted them into a shifting pile of dirt.

‘We’ll have to walk,’ Miles said grimly.

‘How?’ Ben demanded. He slapped a hand against the window. ‘Don’t you remember the stories? A Dirt-storm can scour the skin off your bones.’

Charlie, who’d finally gone silent and who Miles, at least, had assumed was asleep, hiccupped back into sobbing. Her wails set Miles teeth on edge, while Rachel crooned to her and Ben closed his eyes in helpless remorse.

‘We have to go,’ Bass said, staring up. A trickle of Dirt hit the top the buggy in a slow, steady stream as the dune they’d hit began the slow process of toppling over on top of them. By morning, Miles realised, they’d be buried. 

‘Rachel, can you reach our seabags?’ Miles asked. ‘There should be a roll of nanofibre bedroll in each. You need to wrap that around you and the other’s for Charlie and Ben.’

‘I’m ok,’ Ben said.

‘Balls.’

‘She needs it more.’

Rachel unearthed the thin, slick layers of black and shrouded Charlie in it. The kid looked like a burrito when she finished, just a loose fold revealing a wobbly lower lip. It wasn’t quite as comprehensive a coverall on Rachel, it tucked over her hair and pulled tight over her tummy.

‘Hands inside,’ Bass told her, tugging his respirator over his head and handing it back. Miles tossed his to Ben for Charlie. 

‘What if I fall?’ she protested, struggling out of the car with Charlie.

‘You aren’t walking,’ Bass said. He scooped her up, shifting her weight in his arms. Miles grabbed Charlie, tucking her tight against his chest, and looked at Ben worriedly. Even in the shelter of the car dust was already scratching at their throats, clogging their noses, but of the three civilians, Ben was the least vulnerable.

‘Grab one of our jackets,’ he said. ‘It’s not nano-fibre, but its tough. Hold it over your face and bring up the rear. We’ll be some measure of wind-break for you.’

Ben looked lost, out of his depth. A bitter part of Miles thought that maybe now he’d realise being a marine wasn’t a waste of time, but it was a small, sour part.

‘Come on,’ he said, pressing Charlie’s head into his shoulder. He ducked his chin into his chest and struck out towards the Gates. The winds hit him hard enough to bruise, making him stagger. He forged forwards in fits and bursts, trying to find the brief moments of calm. 

A couple of times he had to drop to his knees, hunched and wheezing against Charlie’s back, until the wind let him get back to his feet. Ben stopped moving for a while, but Bass swore his way back and bullied him forwards.

The Gates had to be close.


	6. Chapter 6

Ben stumbled, the ground cracking and crumbling under his feet like salt, and spat dirt from between his lips. It did more harm than good, the wind gagging him with dirt. He tugged the jacket up over his face again, breathing the stink of fear-soured breath and another man's sweat worked into the folds.

He made himself move before Bass had to backtrack and chivvy him on again. It stung to need them, to be useless. He was the successful one wasn't he, the one who'd made something of himself and had a family and credit and a nice car. The one capable of negotiating society to his advantage. Except here and now all that was useless. He was useless.

That knowledge sat like a hot stone in his gut, dragging him down into the dirt. He didn't notice the others had stopped, walking into Bass's back. The other man staggered and snarled at him, shifting his grip on Rachel to hoist her up into his arms.

But it was alright, Ben realised with a wet flood of relief, because they were in front of the huge, pill-shaped gates into the Gutters. Miles hunched into the doors and hammered with his fist until they cracked open and the attendants, who usually didn't have anything to do but check registrations and warn people to be careful, hurried them inside.

'Get them water,' someone yelled. Next thing he knew Ben was sitting down and a tired looking medic in marine black smart-armour was shining a light in his eyes. He tried to push her hand away-

'What are doing?' he croaked, choking on raw flesh and mud. 

The medic slapped his hand down impatiently. 'Seeing if you're going to go blind,' she said sharply. Sit still.'

So he did, rolling his head to look around listlessly as she checked him over. Bass was on his feet, although leaning against a wall, with his hands braced on his knees as he coughed and spat. And Miles was snarling back at his medic, trying to dodge his attempts to stick a siphon in his mouth.

Everyone else was clustered around Rachel. Oh god. Slapped back to caring Ben struggled up, pulling himself up the wall with abraded raw hands. 

'My wife,' he told the medic when she tried to stop him. 'That's my wife. My son.'

She looked more irritated than sympathetic, but allowed that he 'seemed as well as could be expected' and shoved a bottle of water into his hand. Still leaning on the wall Ben made his way over to Rachel, dropping to his knees next to her. Charlie was curled up on her lap, still hugging the nano-fibre blanket around her.

'Hey,' he said, touching Rachel's arm. 'You OK?'

She didn't look it. Her pale hair was dirty and tangled, matted into elf-locks at her scalp, and her face was colourless except for the raw patches along her jaw and temples. But she smiled, blue eyes crinkling, and squeezed his hand.

'I think so,' she said. 

He ducked down, ignoring the painful pull of skin across his back, to check on Charlie. She sniffled when he tugged the blanket back, but she looked fine. 

Thank god.

Rachel stroked his hair as he rested his face on Charlie's back, savouring the living, sniffing warmth of her. It was one of the fussing medics who dislodged him, pushing him firmly aside. They checked Rachel's vitals again, then scanned her stomach.

'What's wrong?' she asked, voice gone small and non-Rachel. When they didn't answer she shot a panicked look at Ben, groping for his hand. 'Ben, what's wrong.'

He wanted to say 'nothing', but he couldn't make his voice spit the word out. So he kissed the back of Rachel's hand, mouth lingering on her dusty knuckles. 'Just let them work,' he said. 'Once they know anything, they'll tell us.'

Tears welled in her eyes. 'But what's wrong? Why do they think something's wrong?'

Ben hugged her and tried to calm her down. He had all the platitudes: 'wait and see', 'don't worry until we know there's cause'. That they were right was, somehow, no comfort.

'What's going on?' Bass interrupted, voice rasping abrasively in his throat like Ben's. He managed to pull off threatening instead of sick. With his raw-skinned face, the healcrete covered strip at the side the only piece that didn't look scoured, and flat, pale eyes he looked like someone used to getting answered. 'You heard her ask, tell her what she wants to know.'

The chief medic pressed his lips together and stood up, smoothing his hands down his thighs even though the smart-armour didn't wrinkle like fabric. There was a bloody gash in his forehead, white staples showing through the close-cropped black fuzz. 

'The baby's in some distress,' he said. 'It isn't critical yet, it could just be a result of stress on the mother. So we don't want anyone to worry, we'll take Mrs Matheson to the hospital and monitor the situation. Once we know more, so will you.'

'He'll be OK though,' Bass said. 'Right?'

The medic pleated his lips. 'Once we know more.'

Rachel made a choked sound, wrapping her arm protectively over her stomach, and Ben rested his forehead against hers and murmured reassuringly in her tangled hair. She curled into him, shaking as she tried not to cry and upset Charlie.

'We can do this,' he told her, tipping her face up towards him with a nudge of his hand. 'Just like always. I'll contact Gestalt, get the best doctors out here. You just don't worry, about anything.'

Ben held her until the transport came to take her to the hospital, the paramedics taping sensors to her belly. Once she was gone he slumped back against the wall, shoving the heels of his hands against his sore eyes. Fear and grief and a slinking, rooted shame burned in his chest, choking him.

'Ben,' Miles said, gripping his shoulder. 'Do you need anything-'

That sour tangle of feeling came together in a hot flare of anger. Ben shoved Miles away and straightened up, glaring at his brother.

'I need this not to be happening,' he said. On some level he knew this wasn't fair, that none of this was Miles fault. Except he needed to blame someone, to do something, and Miles was here. He stepped forwards and jabbed his finger into Miles chest. 'We shouldn't have listened to. If we'd stayed in the house then none of this would have happened. Gestalt would have sent a rescue team, we'd have been safe. My son would have been safe.'

Miles just clenched his jaw and looked away, absorbing the blame stoically. It was Bass who protested.

'The dome was compromised,' he said. 'You spent five minutes in that storm, would you have rather spent a whole night – more – with your head stuck in the ground trying to wait it out?'

'I'd rather you mind your own business,' Ben snarled, rounding on him. 'We don't need you.'

A sneer curled Bass' mouth at the corner. 'I didn't see you arguing over got to carry your wife.'

Ben punched Bass in the face. If it had even crossed Bass' mind that Ben might take a swing, it would never have connected. As it was, his knuckles cracked into Bass' jaw. Pain jolted from his knuckles into risk, but the moment of savage pleasure he felt as Bass staggered made it worth it.

'Go to hell,' he said.

He didn't expect the feeling to last. Bass caught his balance, expression furious and humiliated, and lunged at Ben. Miles got in the way, pushing his friend back. 

'That's enough, Bass,' he snarled. 'This isn't the time.'

'He started it.'

'Yeah?'

Bass' face twisted and he wrenched out of Miles grip, stepping back and rubbing his jaw sullenly. The relief at not getting beaten bloody escaped Ben on a carefully measured sigh. He flexed his aching hand and met Bass' stare.

'This is my family,' he said. 'Not yours. You don't have one.'

Something cold flared in Bass' eyes and a tight smile twitched the corner of his mouth. Miles shoved him back again, then turned back to Ben.

'He's my family,' he said.

Ben knew he needed to back down, to smooth the ground between them before it got out of hand. It was his job as the sensible, older brother. Except his mouth was hooked up to that hot bubble of anger, not his brain. He couldn't stop the words.

'Then you're not mine,' he spat and walked away.


	7. Chapter 7

The retaliatory strike had scooped out the heart of the port, leaving a shifting sink-pool half-a-mile across surrounded by twisted char-black struts. The fragile outer crust of the Dirt had cracked, Gestalt's ion-web dissolving like sugar in water, and fractured.

A quarter of the bubble-burbs had been destroyed and half of those that'd survived weren't going to be habitable for years and even the Gutter's hadn't survived intact. Three neighbourhoods had been flooded, with the inhabitants having to swim out through the loosely-packed dirt.

Some didn't make it. A month after the disaster and they were still digging out bodies. The screen-casters were saying that they'd have to give up soon. With no support capable of reaching the planet from the orbiting space station or the patrolling battleplates, they couldn't afford to expend resources on the search effort.

The recruiting officer rubbed his forehead wearily, pressing his fingertip against the vein that throbbed in his temple. He was middle-aged and tired looking, the flesh of his face hanging off his bones like it was sleeping and his eyes blood-shot and raw-looking.

'200 marines were on planet-leave when the rogues took out the port,' he said. 'There are...what? a couple of thousand retired or flunked out marines here?'

'We have the option to re-up without question until our terminal leave is done,' Bass said. 'We got a week left.'

The recruiter pressed his lips together and shook his head. 'Far as Ruin is concerned? There's the first military hiring freeze for 100 years.'

'Two months ago, we were promised a fast-track if we re-upped,' Miles pointed out, leaning over and bracing his fists on the table. 'Now you won't touch us with a barge pole?'

Bass had seen some nasty bastards back down when faced with that look from Miles Matheson, it wasn't that it was particularly psychotic. Just bone-deep sure that if he needed to throw down, he'd be walking away. The recruiter was either scarier than he looked, or just too tired to bother with being scared.

'With your records?' he said, flicking them onto his screen with a flick of his fingers. 'Two months ago, I'd have taken your arms off. I'd have promised you the freaking stars, and meant at least a third of it. Now? We're having to pay off contracts, pull pensions and limit medical care. We aren't getting off this planet for the foreseeable, and the military ain't paying marines to sit around on their asses getting fat. They have enough to worry about, Ruin was our prime recruiting planet.'

'Our hearts bleed,' Bass muttered, grabbing Miles arm and dragging him out before one of them lost their temper.

They headed to the nearest bar in grim silence, breaking it only to order a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. The bartender provided it with a sour twist of his mouth and a mutter as he walked away. Miles twisted the top off and poured; Bass gave in and said it.

'Maybe you should call Ben.'

'No.'

'He's pissed at me, not you.'

'Same difference,' Miles grunted, staring into the bottom of his glass. He turned it between his fingers, the base scrapping on the bar. 'I'm sick of apologising to him for who I am and what I do.'

'Did,' Bass pointed out. 'Not like we saved a shitload, Miles. Another month and that hotel is gonna kick our asses out. I wouldn't be much of a friend if I expected you to do that, right?'

Miles just tossed back the whiskey, blinking once at the burn, and poured himself another. He licked his lips. 'Ben has enough on his plate,' he said. 'Besides, how many doors can Gestalt have left to guard?'

That was worth a snort of amusement. Bass took a drink from his glass and twisted around on the stool, letting his eyes roam over the off-duty dancers slinging drinks. He flicked over the blondes, but none of them made his attention linger. A tiny, curvy brunette with brightly tatooed arms and legs, imprinted ink moving lazily under her skin, caught his eye.

He flashed her a grin when she looked his way. Big brown eyes gave him a once over and she pursed her lips thoughtfully before turning her back and finishing handing out drinks. Interested, Bass figured, but not sold.

'Really?' Miles asked.

Bass shrugged. 'Getting laid is cheaper than getting drunk,' he said, then thought about it for a second. 'Well, it is for me.'

'Asshole.'

The brunette sauntered past on her way to the back, giving Bass a teasing, sidelong look from under sparkling lashes. Definitely interested. He slid off the stool and went to go after her. A wall of cheap tattoos and cheaper synth-armour got in his way, shoving him back.

'Fuck off, gygene,' the gutter-punk said. He was a six-foot lump of scarred muscle, black work-stamps lined up down one arm. 'We told your lot before, you ain't welcome round here.'

'Just having a drink,' Bass said easily. 'We don't want any trouble.'

'Then you shouldn't have come back here,' the punk said. He grabbed Bass' jacket in both hands and wrenched him onto his toes. 'Think we ain't seen you? Sniffing round our jobs, our women? We stayed. You left. Nobody asked you back.'

Bass head-butted him. He felt the jarring impact down his neck-bones and felt the distinctive crunchy-pop of someone else's facial bones giving way. The punk let go and staggered back, hands grabbing his face as he swore thickly. Blood dripped between his fingers.

'Fuck sake,' a woman said in a clear, carrying voice and hit the alarm, filling the room with the nerve jangling howl of it.

'Come on,' Bass said, scruffing Miles off his stool. The punks friends were getting up, all dark scowls and glittering eyes. 'Lets find somewhere else to drink, eh?'

Miles shrugged him off and cracked his knuckles. 'Naw,' he said, giving the stocky, one-eyed man stalking towards him an eager grin. 'I like it here.'

He stepped forwards and twisted, the swipe of a filament-knife just missing his gut, before driving his fist into the man's gut and hooking his foot behind his ankle. The man went tumbling over Miles hip in an undignified tangle, the knee on that one leg popping out at a clearly unnatural angle. Once he was down Miles stamped on his wrist and bent down to scoop up the knife, making it dance between his fingers.

The next punk who threw himself in got the blade jammed into his shoulder, while Miles kicked the bloody-nosed first guy in the knee.

What the hell, Bass shrugged to himself, a fight was even cheaper than getting laid. He grabbed a bottle from the bar and smashed it on a bald head, dropping the guy about to punch Miles in the head. Glass crunched under foot as he broke a man's wrist and punched another guy in the larynx.

Something hit over the back of the head, pain flaring black behind his eyes, and he staggered. Rough hands grabbed the collar of his jacket and swung him around and down onto the slide table, banging his head off the reinforced metal. Bass could feel the heavy mass of the man shoved against him and the ragged, guttural grunt he made every time Bass' head cracked against the surface.

Anyone made sounds like that in a fight, they meant to kill you. Bass groped along the bar until his fingers wrapped around one of the heavy stone pucks. He swung back, catching the grunter on the jaw with his reinforced fist. His knuckles cracked and ached from the impact, but the other guys face had to hurt more.

He shoved off the table, the vision in one eye tinted red and that wasn't good, and smashed the guy's ribs and hip for him. The wiry, acne-pocked man dropped to the ground, writhing like a half-dead mug, and Bass kicked him in the face. He was about to take a second kick – for luck – when the nerve-jangling pain of a dispersal gun on low jabbed through him. Muscles spasmed into knots, on higher settings he'd seen men crack their own bones, and he tasted bile in the back of his mouth.

'Down on the ground,' a man snapped. 'Hands where I can see them. NOW!'

Shit. Bass got down obediently, one knee at a time, and checked that Miles was doing the same. Sometime he was already kneeling, hands laced behind his head. Bass forced his spasming fingers open and tossed the puck under the table before the patrol could find him with it.

'You're all under arrest,' the first man said in disgust. 'Idiots. Round them up.'

Cold plastic cuffs snapped around Bass's wrist, heating up as the shrunk down to fit, and he got hauled back to his feet. The adrenaline of the fight was ebbing and goddamn his face hurt. Across the groaning bodies of the gang they'd dropped, Miles grinned at him with bloody teeth.

'I get a job at Gestalt,' he joked. 'When we gonna get to spend quality time like this together?'

The patrol shoving him along cuffed Miles on the head and told him to shut up. They got loaded into the back of a riot van and cuffed securely to a bar. Through the open doors Bass saw the bruised and bloody gang limp out of the bar, uncuffed and free to go.

'What the fuck?' he said. 'Why do they get to walk?'

The patrol glared at him, a sneer twisting her mouth. 'Shut your goddamn mouth, gygene.'  
She slammed the door on them.

*********

Bass woke up to the creak of the door into the cell-block, propping his aching body up on his elbows. Mostly the fight in the bar, a couple of bruises from the hard-faced patrols who’d escorted him down here. 

‘It’s your fucking fault this happened?’ one of them had snarled, spit hot in his ear, as they sliced the cuffs off. ‘You goddamn gygenes are the reason they bombed our planet.’

The last person he was expecting to see was Rachel, her hair swept back and up and her face even paler than usual. He rolled up and off the cot, halfway to the bars before he realised she was here to see Miles. Not him. 

He leant against the bars anywhere and grinned at her. ‘Fancy seeing you in a place like this, Mrs Matheson,’ he drawled. ‘Slumming?’

Two hot spots of pink appeared on her cheeks like he’d pinched her. They faded quickly as she lifted her chin.

‘I’m bailing my brother-in-law out,’ she said dryly. He tilted his head against the bars and watched her until she sighed. ‘And you. Patrol Clayton?’

The dark-haired man that had done all the yelling at the bar scowled. ‘I wouldn’t waste my money if I was you,’ he said. ‘They’ll be back here in a week, for killing someone this time, not just disturbing the peace.’

The flicker of worry that skimmed over Rachel’s brow, just twitching a line over her nose, irritated Bass. He wasn’t a psychopath.

‘We didn’t start the fight,’ he said.

‘Ended it though, didn’t you?’ Clayton said bluntly. ‘That’s the problem, Sergeant Monroe, your lot are too good at fighting. Everyone knows it, and how long before people with a grudge start trying to take you out with a gun? Much safer, for everyone, if we keep you here or send you to the Gestalt work-camps.’

Bass shifted, ready to question that, but Rachel didn’t give him the chance.

‘I’ll stand for their bond,’ she said sharply. ‘They won’t cause you any more trouble. Right, Sebastian?’

Nobody called him Sebastian. It was probably why it was like a hand right down his pants when she did it. He pulled up a smirk.

‘I’ll be good as gold, Mrs Matheson,’ he said. ‘Cross my heart.’

Clayton grunted sourly and jabbed his finger to the lock, popping the door open. He stepped back, hand dropping prudently to his disperser, as Bass cracked his neck and stepped out. When Bass just crossed his arms and leant back against the wall, Clayton relaxed his shoulders.

‘I’ll fetch Sergeant Matheson,’ he said. His mouth pulled down into a sour line and he gave Bass an unimpressed look. ‘We had to separate them to shut them up.’

He prowled off. Clayton, Bass made a note in case they crossed paths again, moved like a dangerous man. Rachel gave a quiet, barely noticeable, little exhale of relief and turned to him. She winced and reached up, fingers pausing just before touching his bruised skin.

‘What do you have against your face, Sebastian?’ she asked.

He caught her hand and pressed it lightly to his cheek, her palm cool against hot skin. ‘It’s other people, Rachel. I’m just too damn pretty.’

She quirked her eyebrows. ‘Not right now, you’re not.’

Ouch. He let go of her hand. ‘That bad?’

‘Not good,’ she said and tested his cheekbone gingerly, making his eyes water as the dull throb of pain he’d got used to flared up. ‘I think that’s cracked.’

He shrugged. ‘I’ve had worse.’

For a second she looked sad for him – and he could work with that – but before he could press the advantage they heard the clump of returning footsteps, and he remembered he shouldn’t. Rachel snatched her hand back and turned around, making a small sound of shock when she saw Miles.

Without a mirror Bass supposed that meant that at least he looked a bit better than the mask of bruises and dried blood that was Miles’ face. 

Miles caught their expressions and smiled thinly, the crust of blood cracking and flaking. ‘Looks worse than it is,’ he said, picking a scab off his cheekbone. ‘I, ah, fell and banged my head on the way to the other cell. Scalp wounds bleed like hell.’

He strode forwards and threw his arms around Rachel, lifting her up onto her toes and surprising a squeak out of her. ‘Did Ben send you?’

Rachel didn’t need to answer. The awkward silence was enough. Miles set her back down on her feet carefully, face gone hard, and waited in grim silence as she let Clayton collect her DNA and signature for the bond.

‘I’ll pay you back,’ Miles said once they were outside. He tried to flag down a cab for her, scowling blackly and scratching at his face when it didn’t stop.

‘That’s not necessary,’ Rachel said awkwardly. She patted his arm. ‘You’re family.’

Miles was focused on trying to get a buggy, but Bass saw the guilt flash through Rachel’s eyes. He’d seen it before after all.

‘You were going to ask for something, though,’ he said.

She gave him a startled look and stammered out an obviously false ‘no’, her hand rubbing nervy circles over her heavy stomach. Miles dragged his attention away from the road and really looked at her for a second, irritation softening into worry.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

She took a deep breath. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I just...You are family, I shouldn’t have tried to involve you.’

Squeezing between them she raised a hand and two of the passing buggies nearly scraped each other trying to get in front of her. Miles looked sour, but caught Rachel’s arm.

‘If you need help, Rachel, you don’t need to do me a favour first,’ he said. ‘Just ask.’

She bit her lip uncertainly. The buggy driver dropped his window and leant out, round face screwed up suspiciously. ‘Here, love, they pestering you?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s fine. I just-‘

‘Our hotel’s near here,’ Miles said, giving Rachel’s arm a tug. ‘I owe you a drin –‘ he glanced at her belly. ‘ – coffee, at least. We’re family remember.’

She nodded slowly and waved the buggy away. The cab driver yelled a slur out the window as he nipped back into traffic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter and we'll be ready for the time jump.


	8. Chapter 8

Miles sat on the edge of his bed, hands dangling between his thighs, as Rachel sealed the gash on his scalp. If you tuned out the accompanying lecture – which he did – it was kind of nice to be fussed over. The medics never fussed. They just sutured you up, slapped a bandage on it and stuck you with whatever meds they thoughts would stop you dying while you were still useful. 

'You're going to have a scar,' she said, running her thumb along the clipped edge of hair.

He shrugged with bitter amusement. 'Good thing the marines don't want me back then,' he said. 'I can grow my hair to cover it.'

Rachel didn't comment on that. He appreciated that. She tidied up the supplies, twisting them into a ball with nervous fingers and turned towards Bass. He was leaning against the door, a cold pack pressed to his cheek, and he held up his hand to ward her off.

'I'm fine,' he said.

'Your eyebrow needs stitches,' Rachel said.

'I'm not your kid,' Bass said, voice going sharp. It made Rachel flinch back a step in surprise. 'I don't need you to mother me.'

Miles glared at him quellingly – you didn't snap at pregnant women, specially not his pregnant sister-in-law – and cleared his throat to get Rachel's attention. 

'Why do you need my help, Rachel?' he asked. The corner of his mouth twisted as he glanced around the mean motel room, their stuff still stowed and ready to go. 'I don't mind you asking, but unless you need someone punched in the face? I'm kinda tapped on useful.'

She rubbed her belly with one hand, shifting her weight awkwardly from one foot to the other. Oh hell, Miles realised and bolted to his feet. The sudden movement made his head swim, the room wobbling around him, but he kept his feet.

'You want to sit down?'

That she nodded made him worry a bit. With Charlie, Ben had told him, she'd refused to make any concessions to her state. He tried to take her arm and she batted him away.

'I think I can still manage sitting,' she said acerbically, doing just that, then she pulled a rueful face. 'Sorry. That's not fair.'

He shrugged and hooked his thumbs in his belt, looking down at her. There was never much colour in her narrow, clever face, but there seemed less than usual today. She looked tired, more than bone-deep.

'What do you need?' he asked.

She took a deep breath, glancing quickly at Bass and then down at her stomach. 'I need something,' she said. 'It's contraband and I, I don't know how to get it.'

'What could you need that Gestalt couldn't get you?' Miles asked.

She looked up, meeting his eyes. 'Taroviridae.'

Right. 

'I got no idea what that means,' Miles said. He rapped his knuckles against his temple. 'I'm the dumb brother, remember.'

'It's a virus,' Bass said. He smirked on one-side of his face when both Miles and Rachel gave him startled looks. 'We transported a weaponised variant of it to...Morcamb, I think it was. Nasty stuff.'

The thought that Rachel might be a rogue agent, or even sympathiser, occurred to Miles. Before he could spend too much time worrying about what the hell he'd do then, she shook her head. 

'I don't need – or want – it weaponised,' she said earnestly. 'I need csci gradiant centrifuged vector with E1 intact. It's the delivery method is all. It's empty...suitcase, you can fill it with a pipe bomb or medical supplies, but the suitcase itself is harmless.'

Bass tossed the cool-pack into the waste with a clatter. 'You want us to go to the Goblin Market,' he said flatly, drying his face on his sleeve. 

'Taroviridae is highly infectious, opportunistic and an enthusiastic replicator,' Rachel said. 'It doesn't have to be weaponised, but it's the virus of choice if you want to. That means it's a controlled substance, access to it is strictly curtailed. I can't get it through Gestalt and-'

'Rachel,' Miles said, crouching and putting his hand on her knee. 'What's wrong with the baby?' 

Her face crumpled, lips twisting, and for a dreadful second looked like she was going to cry. Crying women weren't really his area of expertise, he was better with angry. Rachel dragged herself back under control with a ragged breath.

'He has Ptolsky's Syndrome,' she said. 'The doctor's say...it's not good. He's barely coping with the environmental conditions while in here,' she touched her stomach with one hand. 'Once he's born...'

She didn't need to finish the sentence. Ptolsky's was basically an allergy to the environment of Ruin; it wasn't common, but it wasn't rare either. Usually pregnant women presenting with symptoms would be taken off-world and the infant's immune system stabilised with a lifelong regimen of medication and injections. Except that wasn't exactly an option right now.

'And this...Taro Virus can help?' Miles asked.

Rachel fiddled her hair back behind her ear. 'Not on its own,' she said. 'But..Gestalt were working on a cure. I have access to the old research.'

'It's experimental?' Miles protested. 'What if it doesn't work? Or makes it worse.'

'The gene therapy was ready to be released on the market,' Rachel said. She hesitated, shifting uncomfortably. 'Only...Gestalt decided it wasn't cost effective, so they archived it.'

'People die of this,' Miles said, genuinely shocked. 'Babies.'

'Not enough.'

It galled, but there was nothing that Miles could do for those other kids. This one, maybe, he could help. 

'Why ask us,' Bass asked, pushing himself off the door. 'Ben grew up in the same Gutters, we did. He knows the same people. Why doesn't he go?'

Silence for a second. When Rachel spoke her voice was careful and flat. 'He thinks it is too risky,' she said. 'If I'm caught Gestalt will cancel both our contracts, we'll lose our housing, Charlie's educational access, our wages. He thinks we should trust Gestalt, that they'll come through in time.'

Bass made a contemptuous noise and Rachel lifted her chin to glare at him. 'He's right,' she said. 'I'm an epidemiologist and Ben's a physicist, there aren't any other employment opportunities for us other than Gestalt. We'd be in the Gutters with two children and no skills, nowhere to live...? Ben's right, I just can't do it.'

'You don't have to and you won't get caught,' Miles said. 'It will take us a while to get in touch with our old contacts, how long do we have.'

'Two weeks,' she said. 'After that the genetic damage will be too extensive to repair easily.'

It took three.

****

Ruin's Goblin Market was a wandering community of murderers, thieves, drug-dealers and pimps that moved from squat to squat amidst the hundreds of un-reclaimed tunnels and pipe-ways. They'd been dubbed that in a speech by some poetically minded politician condemning their corrupting ways, only to have the Market mockingly adopt it as their own.

There were ways to find it, crime without customers wasn't that profitable, but after 10 years it took time to re-establish your credentials. Time they didn't have. Miles thought he'd broken his knuckles in that last bar, but they'd finally got directions to a dead-end alley in the empty reaches of the Gutters.

It was creepy down here, away from the normalising façades constructed in the more popular areas. The alien architecture was bare and stark, the dimensions fell a degree short of human expectations and the structures didn't seem to be designed with the bipedal form in mind. 

The Market residents made do. The gaping bays were blocked with make-shift sheets of glastic, tags and marked with acid-scoured lettering, and great swathes of fabric cut the two wide road into a tangle of alleys and smoky dens guarded by tattooed, hard boys with stripped down, amped up dispersers on their hips.

'Brings back memories,' Miles muttered.

Bass snorted. 'Yeah, of getting all that damn ink burned out in basic.'

That hadn't been pleasant, Miles had to admit as he scratched old pain along his forearm. According to the cringing fence they'd bullied the invitation from, there was only man in the market who had access to what they'd need. Banner Tolliver, the arms dealer, he was expecting them.

They walked through the market, stepping over the sprawled legs of smoke-addled druggies. Miles ignored them at first, but after a while it registered how many wore military-issue boots. He started checking, seeking out the cropped heads and scars and a few familiar faces. His mood got grimmer with every step.

'Not the first time you've seen Kipling off his head,' Bass pointed out, without Miles needing to say anything. 

'Yeah, and he sobers up for muster,' Miles said. 'Stuck here, what reason has he got to spit that pill out? Getting conscripted for the Gestalt reclamation gangs?'

The mention of that made them both shut up. It had been announced on the screens last week, any one on Ruin without a work-card could be picked off the street by Gestalt and conscripted to dig out their labs. No wages, just room and board and bad work out in the Dirt. It still hadn't stabilised. There had been no more quakes but the storms weren't abating and for every tunnel cleared another sink-pit opened.

Tolliver had claimed one of the structures at the end of the row, matte-blackened glastic sealed over the bay. The heavy-shouldered guard standing in the doorway wasn't some tooled up local boy, he was ex-military with a heavy pulse-rifle slung over his shoulder. Not a marine, Miles thought, something dirtier.

'Move on,' the man said boredly. 'We aren't in the business of dreams.'

'We're here to see Tolliver,' Miles said. The man actually looked at them, recognising them as people instead of just objects in his field of vision. His hand shifted to the trigger of the rifle. 'We're expected.'

The guard reached up and thumbed his comm-link active. 'Got two gygenes out here,' he said. 'They think Tolliver wants to see them.'

Whatever the other end of the link said made the the guard snort contemptuously, flicking his gaze over Miles to Bass. In the end though he unlocked the door and waved them through into the dimly lit interior. It smelt of hot metal and oil – stripped down weaponry stacked around the room in glossy crates – and two guards standing attentively in the corners.

A lanky man with shaggy brown hair sat behind a table, stripping down a Bleu disrupter flash-gun with burn-scarred fingers and a pen-laser. The soundtrack to his work was the brutally unmistakable sound of someone getting their ass kicked in another room. Tolliver looked up after a minute, pushing his lenses up onto his forehead. 

'Larkin says you want a virus load,' he said.

'Sounds like getting an STD,' Bass muttered, eyes flicking around the room.

'Trust me, the clap you can pick up down the street,' Tolliver said. ' Taroviridae is a lot harder to pick up.'

'We can pay,' Miles said.

Tolliver leant back and steepled his fingers in front of his chin. 'Recent events have encouraged me to move to a barter system temporarily,' he said. 'From what I hear, you two are fairly good at what you do. So what we'll do is trade, the virus for a few years of service.'

'Years?' Bass said, raising his eyebrows.

'Not easy to get,' Tolliver said, drawing the words out like Bass was slow. 'And I figure you must really need it.'

Something shattered and the man yelped, that shocked yip of actually being able to hurt worse than you already did. Tolliver swivelled in his chair and glared. 'Break him,' he yelled. 'Not my shit.'

There was another crash and Tolliver cursed, grabbing a crutch and levering himself to his feet. He stamped over to the door and shoved it open. The tough on the other side – not one of Tolliver's hard boy guards - was putting the boot into a man on the floor. He stopped mid-kick when Tolliver glared at him. 'What the fuck? Just get the location and kill the bastard.'

'He won't talk,' the tough said.

'Then just kill him,' Tolliver snapped.

The tough shrugged and grabbed the man's collar, hauling up up onto his knees. Blood caked a broad face, one eye swollen shut and his lip split and oozing. Miles didn't know what it was, the man wasn't even military from the way he held himself, but he was done. 

'Let him go,' he said.

'Miles,' Bass said, voice lilting in warning. 

He ignored it. 'Let the guy go.'

Tolliver raised his eyebrows in a contemptuous expression. 'Scruples. Disappointing, I guess you don't want that virus after all.' He pulled a gun from under his jacket and aimed it at the bloody man's head. 'Say goodbye to it, and your new friend.'

Miles went for the table, grabbing the disrupter. Hot metal scorched his palm, the sickly sweet smell of burning flesh filling the room, as grabbed the battery and slapped it home in one smooth motion. Without the throttle-switch the gun drained the full charge right out of the battery, familiar piercing whine kicking up to a barely audible shrill.

'Fuck it,' Bass swore, lunging across the room and jabbing the nearest guard in the throat. While the man choked for breath Bass grabbed the gun and swung it up to smash the butt into face with vicious intent. 

Miles aimed and pulled the trigger. Bleu's were military grade disrupters, the unthrottled beam ripped through Tolliver's head like a blender through jelly. He twitched violently and dropped, spasms battering his arms and heels against the ground. Blood flecked with bits of tooth burbled from his lips.

Still swearing under his breath Bass kneed the guard in the balls and twisted the gun, jamming the muzzle into soft jowls. It made a splutting sound, flat and wet, as he pulled the trigger. Dirtier didn't mean better. Wrenching the gun free of the dead man Bass turned and took out the remaining guard.

It took seconds from start to finish, the last guard still gawping in shock with his gun dangling. The door slammed open and the door guard burst in, gun up and scanning. Bass and Miles shot him at the same moment.

Miles turned back around to aim the Bleu at the tattooed tough. 'Let the man go.'

The tough gulped, sweat oozing out of his tattoos and the sour fear tang of it wafting off him. His tongue dabbed cracked lips. 'I can still kill him.'

'And I will kill you,' Miles said. 'You have shit for leverage here. Let. Him. Go.'

The tough let go and backed up slowly. Showing better situational awareness than Miles had expected of him, he raised his hands and tucked them behind his shorn head. 'I was just doing my job, man.'

The beaten man wobbled on his knees, wiping a bloody hand over a bloodier face. 'He killed my partner.'

'Just the job,' the tough promised, nervous laughter squeezing out of him. 'I did what I was told, if I hadn't it would have been someone-'

Miles shot him and peeled the Bleu off his hand, leaving chunks of callused skin on the unprotected stock. No leaving that behind. He stuck the gun into the back of his jeans, under his jacket.

'My names Jeremy,' the man said, trying to push himself up without using his arm (broken) or one leg (dislocated knee). 'Thanks for helping me out.'

'Miles, move it,' Bass said. 'It's not a year in the cells we have to worry about down here.'

'I know,' Miles said, hauling Jeremy to his feet with a grunted 'Miles'. He got the man steady and shoved him towards a crate. 'Grab what you can and then we get out. Move!'

He grabbed a handful of flash grenades, stuffing them into his jacket, and starting emptying out a box of bi-pulse rifles.

'What are you doing?' Bass asked, leaning on the case.

'I'm done begging,' Miles said. 'I was born on this planet and it looks like I'm going die here, like it or not.'

'Sooner rather than later if you keep this up.

'I'm done begging for scraps and I'm not going grubbing in the Dirt,' Miles said, slotting the battery into the gun. It hummed to light, catching dim blue on his hands. He looked grimly reluctant, but determined. 'If they won't give us what we need, then we take it.'


	9. In the Interim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The passage of time

**Bass**

It was an unprepossessing little package, a seamless metal vial sealed in a paperweight sized cube of plascrete. Rachel lifted it out of the packaging with trembling hands and turned it over, tapping it with a ring she wore on her thumb. A flicker of light rippled through the clear container, catching in hidden lettering.

'Is it what you needed?' Bass asked, leaning back against the wall. He'd asked her to meet him on the street. Right now he didn't want anyone to know where he was staying – or thinking that Rachel did. The wind whistled around then, tugging at her hair and making him hunch down into his jacket. It sounded dissonant, hitting the humming black walls in places the creators hadn't intended.

The attack had changed the sound of the world – in more ways than one.

Her hands closed around the cube, her knuckles bleeding white, like she thought someone might try and take it from her. Her throat worked as she swallowed hard and nodded.

'It is.' She fumbled it into her bag, fingers clumsy with nerves. 'Thank you.'

'Will the kid be ok?' Bass asked.

He reached out towards her stomach, but a flicker of doubt made him draw back before touching her. Rachel caught his hand and pressed it against the lower curve of her stomach. They waited, heads inclined, until Bass felt a bump against his palm.

'He's strong,' Rachel said. 'He'll be fine. I know he will.'

Bass nodded and pulled his hand back. He shoved his hands into his pocket and chewed the inside of his cheek.

'Don't look for us again, Rachel,' he said. 'If anyone asks, you haven't seen us in a month. You don't want to see us again.'

'What's wrong?' she asked. He shook his head and she frowned at him, a line wrinkling in between her eyebrows. 'Sebastian, let me help.'

It only took a second for Bass to realise what he had to do – burn his bridges, scrapwood that they were. He wouldn't even have to be particularly cruel, it wasn't as if she was that attached to him, and he would probably be the last honourable thing he'd do for a long time if Miles went through with his plan.

Except he was a selfish bastard. He cupped her face in his hand and tugged her in for a kiss, nipping her lips open and claiming her mouth. It was awkward, wet and tasted of his bloody lip and the dust that got into everything since the upper levels cracked – and he ached with wanting it.

They were going to do this, him and Miles. Because Miles was his best friend and there was no going back now. It would be bloody and wrong, and he'd have to be too. So fuck it, he wanted to keep what little bit of clean and right he could. Even if it all he could get was a few fond feelings.

'It's all gone wrong,' he muttered against her mouth, resting his forehead against hers. The raw edge to her voice made her stop pushing at his chest. 'Me and Miles are in a lot of trouble and you can't be part of it.'

Her fingers curled in his jacket. 'Because of me?' she asked, voice cracking guiltily. 'Because you helped me?'

'It was worth it,' he said. Selfish bastard. He pulled himself away, scrubbing his hand over his short crop of hair. 'Just take care, ok?'

He left her there, looking worried and a little scared, and doubled back on himself, grabbing one of the stolen guns and a bundled up trench from where he'd hidden them. Not the best disguise in the world, but good enough.

 The hard-eyed tough tracking Rachel spilled who he'd been reporting to before Bass shot him.

 

**Rachel**

Danny looked perfect, 10 little fingers and 10 little toes, blue eyes and a ridiculous shock of baby blond hair. None of the damage was visible to the naked eye, but Rachel knew it was there. She felt like she could feel it under his skin sometimes, scratchy ends of unravelled dna rubbing against her fingers.

No-one else understood why she worried.

'It's a miracle he's alive at all,' the doctor said, not looking at Rachel.

Ben put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed, resting his head against hers. 'We're very lucky,' he said. 'Without Gestalt's generosity...'

He was off on his paean to the company. Since the doctors discovered that Danny had 'spontaneously' stabilized, Ben had been fiercely grateful to Gestalt. The doctor had overseen the treatment though, she'd read every report, and she knew that it was nothing they'd done different. Nobody had committed to saying that yet, but Rachel could feel the judgement in their eyes.

It didn't matter. She looked down at Danny – Daniel Miles Matheson, and she'd not let Ben's half-hearted grumbles dissuade her – who stared back up with mild, unfocused eyes. Even if it came out, it had been worth it.

For a second, Sebastian was back in her head. The raw edge to his light voice, the desperation in his hands. She flinched guiltily away from Ben, as if he could feel the echoes of her thoughts through her skull, and pretended Danny was fussing. Standing up she walked back and forth, humming distractedly while the doctor went over a medical plan Rachel had already been consulted on.

It had been a stupid, reckless mistake, and she needed to forget about it. She loved her husband, her family, and she was going to need them. Miracles weren't easy, or free, and Danny was going to be the one to pay for theirs.

Except she wouldn't even have Danny if it wasn't for Sebastian and Miles, and they'd dropped off the face of Ruin after she'd spoken to them last. She'd couldn't help but give them both a little space in her head. It was just thinking about Sebastian made her feel … more conflicted.

 

**Ben**

Every morning, he told himself that Rachel didn't want his help with Danny's morning regime. It wasn't a lie. The injections made Danny cry, a dreary whine that cut like glass, and under the nebuliser he gagged and spasmed like they were killing him. All the while Charlie was crying in the bathroom and yelling that she hated them and Danny hated them.

None of it was pleasant, but when Ben did it Rachel kept double-checking it was right and they ended up fighting, hissing at each other under the camouflage of the kids misery. So Ben told himself it was better to just let her get on with it (even though he knew that wasn't fixing anything) and headed to the tiny kitchen to check the news.

The screencasters didn't know the name, but Ben didn't need it. He could see the same hand behind the raids on the reclamation camps, the directed scuffles in the Gutters and the dead bodies found out in the Dirt. And one day, Ben knew, one of the screencasters was going to say 'Miles Matheson' instead of 'apparent new Goblin Market crime lord' and his idiot brother's life would be ruined forever.

Not today though. Outside the Market, no-one knew who Miles was. Ben didn't know which was stronger, his relief or the weight of familial sins.

He shoved both away until tomorrow and got up to make Rachel and Charlie breakfast.

 

**Neville**

 

A bony fist buried itself in Tom's stomach, doubling him over. The other two toughs dragged him back upright, just in time for a punch to the face. His cheekbone, already throbbing, creaked and snapped, pain washing red into his eye.

It could only improve the dreary, mould-crusted walls of the shabby refugee housing.

'You owe us 500 creds,' the first tough said, massaging his bruised knuckles. 'By tonight.'

Tom licked blood off his teeth. 'I borrowed 20,' he protested.

It got him a casually dismissive slap across the face. 'Gygene tax,' the tough smirked. 'You lot got paid well all those years while we were scrabbling about down here in the dirt. About time you shared the love.'

A bitter laugh trickled between Tom's teeth. 'If I had money?' he said between laboured breaths. 'Do you think I'd borrow from the likes of you?'

Hell, he hadn't been a marine. Just a quartermaster who'd really wanted to take his family planet-side for leave. Whatever savings he'd had were either long gone or inaccessible – since he'd used non-military banks and apparently they didn't have a branch on Ruin.

'Well you better find it,' the tough said. An unpleasant smile crawled over his acne-pocked face. 'Maybe you should put that pretty wife of yours to work. That tight ass could earn enough credits to pay us back in a few hours.'

'You stay away from my family,' Tom said, voice rasping in his throat. It made him sound afraid. 'They're nothing to do with this.'

'Maybe I'll offer her a deal,' the tough continued, ignoring him. 'Your debt halved if she fucks me. Of course, by tomorrow you're gonna owe 1000 creds – and if you can't pay 500... Or maybe I'll not ask?'

The guys holding Tom were laughing so hard about the idea of raping his wife that their grip loosened. Tom wrenched out of their hands, leaving his jacket dangling, and lunged at the tough. He hit him hard and took him to the ground, knocking over his desk. Tom rammed his knee into the man's crotch, hard enough hurt Tom's bones, and hammered at the arch of his ribs with his fist.

Maybe Tom hadn't been a marine, but he'd gone through basic training with everyone else – and it was his agrophobia not his skill that sent him to a desk. It wasn't going to be a fair fight though, not with two other men there. Good. Tom grabbed a pen from the floor, flipping it in his fingers and rammed it up the tough's pierced nose. The man squealed like a animal, thrashing under Tom.

The other two grabbed him, but too late. Before they could drag him off, Tom hit the pen with the heel of his hand. It sheared through his sinus passages and into his brain. Blood gouted from his nose and he thrashed, his heels and the back of his head hammering on the floor.

Tom hawked and spat a blood wad of phelgm onto the tough's grimacing face.

'Stay the fuck away from my wife.'

The other two stopped gawped and grabbed him, shoving a handful of dirty fabric into his mouth.

'You're dead,' they snarled, shaking him. 'Fucking dead.'

They dragged him out and shoved him down the stairs, sending him toppling gracelessly down five flights of too-slick, too narrow stairs. He cracked his knees and jarred his shoulders as he tried to break his fall. By the time they got to the bottom his head was bleeding and his arm dangled useless from his shoulder.

At least, Julia and Jason wouldn't see him.

'You gygenes,' one of the men said, pulling a slide-cut out of his pocket. 'Think you can come here and take over, think you're so damn tough? Well, lets show everyone that you aren't.'

He touched the tip to Tom's eyelid. It didn't hurt, not at first, although Tom could feel his blood trickling down his face. It dripped from his chin and then he felt it – a hot, sharp hurt that clutched at his face like a claw.

Please, don't let Julia and Jason see him.

'Now,' a pleasant, steady voice said. 'I thought we'd talked about this with them. 

'Yeah,' a rougher voice agreed. 'I guess it didn't take.'

Blinking the blood out of his eye, Tom saw two men with hard faces in marine-issue black stride forwards. The men holding him let go and made a run for it, skidding to a halt when another black clad man aimed what looked like a Haskell-4 wide-range Disperser at them – although that wasn't cleared for use on a civilian planet.

'We didn't know he was one of yours,' one of the men.

The blond man glanced at him. 'Did they know you were a marine?'

'They said I had to pay a gygene tax,' Tom said, pressing his sleeve against his eye. The blond's face went cold.

'Let's simplify this for you,' he said. 'Don't fuck with the marines, we don't like it. You're not our type.'

 

**Miles**

'It's gone too far,' Miles said, pointing the unthrottled disperser at Bass' head. 'The Gauntlet, Rachel? Now this? It's the last straw. You have to stop.'

His best friend – his brother – stared at him with confused blue eyes. 'This was what you wanted, Miles. It was your idea.'

That was a truth that Miles couldn't bear to look at. Of all the people he'd killed, the lives he'd destroyed, the only one that truly hurt his heart was Bass. The rest were a sort of intellectual burden, one that troubled him because he knew it should trouble him more.

'Then let it go,' Miles said hopefully. 'I was wrong, Bass, this isn't right. You have to...you have to give yourself up. The Patrol will be here soon. They'll find-'

'Nothing.'

There wasn't even a flicker of worry on his face. Miles hesitated and then lowered his gun. 'You knew.'

Bass raised his eyebrows and twisted his lips in something not quite a smile. 'It does always come as a surprise, but Jeremy is good at his job. He found out. There's nothing in the house that will incriminate me.'

Silence. Miles closed his eyes and shook his head. When he opened them Bass had a gun of his own held loosely in one hand.

'You going to kill me?' he asked.

Bass glanced at the gun. 'You going to kill me?'

'...no,' Miles admitted, realising he never had been going to. He shot Bass in the leg inside, his old friend hitting the ground with a thud. His leg spasmed violently, twisting in ways that looked unnatural, and Bass clenched his teeth around a scream. 'But I do need to slow you down.'

'Miles-'

'Don't come looking for me, Bass,' Miles said, holstering his gun. 'Maybe I'll have the balls to do it then.'

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 15 years later...

The sign mounted high on the wall of the dome flickered as the evening readings were downloaded from the satellites.

Air Quality: Poor.

Charlie coughed into her respirator – it was second-hand, stank of other people's bad breath and the filters were two years past expiring – and wondered if they really thought anyone needed told. She joined the rest of the reclamation crew at the cubicle, each extending a dust-hardened hand to get the days tally scanned.

'25,' the cashier pronounced disinterestedly when Charlie reached him, swiping the tally-paddle down her hand. He flicked it over to deposit. 

'I should have more than that,' Charlie protested, pulling her hand back. Her voice scratchy and muffled. 'I was out from sun-up to down, three full shifts.'

The cashier shrugged. '25 was logged at the site, take it up with the supervisor,' he said. 'You want the tally update or not.'

Charlie bit the inside of her cheek resentfully, but if she turned it down they'd not eat tonight. So she stuck her hand back through the lock to get it scanned. 

'25,' the cashier said again, swiping a different paddle across his screen. 'And they want you on salvage tomorrow. Bus picks up at sun-up.'

He didn't wait and see if she'd agree, even though salvage was back-breaking and paid less than reclamation. Charlie was conscripted, sentenced to the Gestalt work-crews when she didn't get a job with two-weeks of her 18th birthday. She didn't get many choices.

'How am I meant to talk to my supervisor if I'm not on the same site?' she asked.

The cashier shrugged, the very epitome of 'not my problem, don't give a shit'. The man behind Charlie gave her an impatient shrug.

'Some of us wanta get home, move it.'

There was a mutter of agreement down the line. Charlie grimaced behind her mask and got out of the way, stalking away with as much energy as she could muster. It was just another thing to swallow. She stopped at one of the vending-stores on her way home, scanning away her earnings on protein-packs, vitamin water and new filters for Danny.

By the time she finished, her tally was down to single figures. She tried not to think too much about that. It made the whole day – every day, forever – seem pointless. Hitching her bags up in her arms Charlie jostled her way through the crowds of dust-brown work-crew heading home for the night.

She remembered before, a little bit. Back then they'd lived in a big house and when you looked up you could see the sky through domes that weren't crazed with cracks and scoured cloudy by storms. Charlie had her own screens in the walls of her own room, and they'd eaten real food instead of protein bars boiled down to slush.

Now they lived in a cobbled together tenement that only stayed up because it was bolted to the wall of the dome, part of the internal scaffolding holding the compromised structure in place. Dad said it didn't matter, that home was where the heart was and they had enough heart for a mansion. It had sounded more convincing when Charlie was a kid.

Still, it was home and Charlie's feet felt lighter as she turned the last corner. The feeling of relief didn't last long. A glossy black X-3 buggy was hovering in front of the rough-metal steps leading into their flat, and her idiot baby brother had his white-blond head stuck under the hood.

'Danny!' she snapped, stretching her legs. 'What are you doing outside?'

He jumped, cracking his head, and turned to stare guiltily at her. It was easy to read his expression since he wasn't wearing his respirator. Charlie yanked her's off and thumped it into his chest. 'Air quality is rancid today. You know it will make you sick.'

Danny flushed and shuffled his feet, fiddling with the respirator instead of turning it on. 'I'm not glass,' he said. 'I only just came out.'

The buggy shields slid back and a lanky boy with cropped brown hair and a tailored nano-synth bodysuit climbed out. He leant his shoulder against the car and crossed his arms, an e-ink M glittering on the back of his hand.

'Come on, Charlie,' he said. 'Five minutes won't kill him.'

She glared at him. What did Jason Neville know? About anything? Had he sat and listened to his brother breathing in the night, trying to balance him needing to sleep against the fear he'd actually die? Or held him down and pushed the nebuliser over his face as he cried and promised to 'be good' if she'd just stop.

No. He was too busy intimidating Gutters-dwellers and coming down here to play lord of the manor with his fancy, ill-gotten car. 

'Get lost, Neville,' she snapped, grabbing Danny's elbow. 'I've told you before, you're not welcome here.'

'He's my friend,' Danny protested.

'No, he's not.' Charlie shoved him towards the steps. 'He's Monroe's bully-boy, down here trying to buy us for him. Don't fall for it.'

Danny had the good sense – or with Danny it could just be kindness – not to point out that she'd fallen for it. Once. 

'Charlie-'

'It's all right, Danny,' Jason said. He weathered Charlie's glare with equanimity as he half-slid back into the car. 'Just call me once you've thought about it, OK?'

'He won't,' Charlie snapped, at the same time Danny said, 'I will.'

Jason laughed. 'See you around, Danny.' He gave Charlie a slanting smile that said he remembered her falling as well. It made her clench her fist around a familiar tangle of betrayal, resentment and (just a little, just a tiny bit) temptation. 'You too, Charlie.'

'Go to hell,' she told him.

He glanced around, eyes tracking over the dust-eroded buildings, grimy-brown of everything and the barren, restless ground barely visible through the ruined dome. His mouth twisted sourly at the corners. 'I thought we were already there.'

'Yeah, well,' Charlie said, pushing a still protesting Danny inside. 'Some of us deserve to be.'

She slammed the door behind her and leant against it until she heard the subtle purr of the buggy rev and then recede. Cracking the door open, she peeked outside to make sure he was gone.

'He runs errands,' Danny said, sounding like he was rolling his eyes. 'Sometimes. He's not going to torch the place.'

Charlie shut the door firmly, flicking the look on, and gave her little brother an uncompromising look. 'I don't want you hanging around him. You don't need anything he's got, you hear me?'

She carried her bags into the kitchen area, unpacking with an unnecessary amount of door banging and pack slapping. Danny trailed in after her, chewing on his lower lip.

'Mom sent him,' he said.

Charlie's hands went still for a second, then she ripped the protein-pack open. The cheap spray-over branding – Jus-Like-Meat! - came off on her hands revealing the slate grey military packing beneath. It made no claims of it being anything other than heatable.

'You don't need anything from her either.'

Old argument. They didn't even need to have it properly any more, just touch the high points and they could fill in the rest.

'She's our mom,' Danny said.

'She left us.'

'She left Dad.'

'Same difference.' Charlie emptied the jus-slop into a bowl and stuck it into the heater. She wiped her hands, peeling off the shreds of bright ink, and frowned at Danny. 'Where's Dad?'

'Out,' Danny muttered, kicking at the table. 'You're the one that stopped going to see Mom.'

Charlie pulled her heavy braid over her shoulder and picked the ties off. She kept thinking about just chopping it short. It would be a lot more comfortable out on the Dirt, but little shred of vanity always stopped her. Her hair was pretty. It wasn't something she felt a lot of the time, always grubby and tired and wearing heavy clothes.

'I don't want to talk about Mom anymore, Danny,' she said tiredly, shaking her hair out. It shed chunks of gravel. 'I don't want you talking about her either, or to that guy.'

Danny pulled a rebellious face, but – for once – didn't argue. He coughed, so much for it not hurting him, and grabbed a vit-water to sooth the tickle, popping the lid with his thumb.

'Dad went to see Maggie about meds,' he said. 'I figure he'll stay late.'

Charlie scowled. She shouldn't have bothered buying anything for him. These days he spent more time at Maggie's than he did here. It wasn't that she cared if he dated someone – it wasn't like Mom hadn't moved on – but she'd rather it wasn't someone she knew. Maggie had been one of Danny's medics for a while, before Gestalt started shedding their health facilities, and she'd been around since he was little.

It made Maggie think she was part of the family, that she had a vote, instead of just being Dad's girlfriend.

Eat your mush,' Charlie said, rubbing a hand over her face. 'I'm going to have a shower and go to bed.'

'That's all you ever do,' Danny protested. 'Work and sleep. You used to be fun.'

'I don't have much choice,' Charlie said, stung. 'You have to work.'

Danny pulled a face and blurted it out. 'Sebastian would get you a job.'

'Yeah,' Charlie sneered. 'He'd love that, another thing to rub in Dad's face.'

She left him to watch the heater and shuffled into the bedroom, shedding her heavy leather and canvas clothes on the tiled floor. Dirt had worked its way down to her skin despite them, in stripes of sweat and grime on her skin. The creases at her elbows and knees were raw and stinging.

Charlie turned the tap all the way to scald and climbed in the shower, scrubbing enthusiastically until the water swirling around her toes was mud. She ducked her chin and let the water pummel her scalp, closing her eyes. It didn't help. The thoughts she usually tried to keep pushed down floated through her brain. 

It wasn't like Danny had to tell her she could get a job from Sebastian Monroe. One with strings, yes, but still easier than what she was doing and it would probably pay better. It wasn't like she didn't know that. 

Except she couldn't. She couldn't give Monroe one more win over her Dad, she couldn't benefit just because her Mom was with Monroe and she couldn't turn a blind eye to what everyone knew he did, even if no-one ever actually said it aloud. It was just easier to stick to that when no-one reminded her that she did have options.

Scrubbed pinkly-clean at last, Charlie turned the shower off and wrapped herself in a towel before stumbling off to bed. She went out like a light, only waking up when she heard Danny fumbling his way to his bed.

'Dad's not back,' he whispered.

Charlie lifted her head off the pillow, picking out shape of him sitting opposite her. She yawned and rubbed itchy eyes. 'Maggie must have been in a good mood.'

'Ewww,' Danny muttered, lying down. 'Now I won't sleep. Thanks.'

She chuckled sleepily and went back to sleep. The sound of sirens woke them up before dawn, a frantic howl that cut the hot air like a knife. Charlie woke with a start, groggily trying to pick apart the real noise from her nightmares of howling wind and being squeezed till she couldn't breath. 

'Charlie?' Danny asked, voice thin and scratchy. 

'It's ok,' she said, even though she didn't know if that was true. Sitting up, wrapping the sheet around herself, she scrambled to her feet. 'Dad? Daddy?'

There was no answer and when she checked his room, his bed was empty. Whatever was going on out there, her Dad could be in the middle of it.


	11. Chapter 11

Smoke, blood and dirt made an unwholesome paste on Jason's tongue. He swilled his mouth out with flat-tasting water from the bottles being passed out by the Emer-Res crews and spat on the ground, adding to the mud and stink. The tenement he'd just left was gone, dropped through the friable crust into the tunnels beneath. 

It had been a long fall, but not everyone had died. In between the sirens faint screams could be heard below. Even if anyone had survived, it would be days before Gestalt could stabilise the area enough for a rescue attempt.

At least there was no-one below. After the Quake the Gutters below domes had been abandoned by everyone but a few wind-lorn zealots.

Jason swilled water around his mouth again. The third gulp he swallowed, trying to chase the fear dryness out of his throat. The last time he'd seen Ben Matheson had been in that building, and he hadn't come out. Monroe was going to kill him. It hadn't been his fault, he'd just been there, but Monroe was going to kill him anyway. He wasn't a man for excuses.

Gestalt security guards were making the rounds of the witnesses, taking hand and blood scans from people too shaken to notice. That wasn't standard. Jason tossed the empty water bottle and wrung his hands, thumb pressing the e-ink M up and under the band of black mourning around his wrist. E-ink was designed to move, but forcing it felt like...well, thousands of tiny, colourful robots scraping reluctantly through his skin.

'Sir,' one of the guards said, flashing her scanner up and into his eyes. 'Jason Neville. You're a Gutters-boy, what you doing up here.'

He rubbed his forehead, wincing ostentatiously. It wasn't fake. He'd been close enough to the building when it went down to fell the tug of it as it fell and take a crack or two from the flying debris. His head was throbbing and the side of his face sticky and crackling with blood.

'I was visiting a friend,' he said, blinking hard. 'I stopped to grab a caf and, shit, the whole thing just collapsed.'

She narrowed her eyes at him, but his hands and scrape of blood she took from his cheek was clean. So she reluctantly nodded. 'You should probably go, sir. Long drive back to -' she checked her file again, eyebrow lifting. ' -West Gate Tunnels.'

'Sure,' he said and shook his head wonderingly. 'Don't know how you guys do it up here, nothing above and just dirt below.'

The guard gave that smile that Dirt-Siders always did – smug, like there was something great about stomping around up here. 'You get used to it.' One last suspicious glance and she moved on. Jason sighed and rubbed his head, picking scabs of dried blood from his hairline, as he tried to think what to do next.

Call Dad, or call Monroe directly?

He couldn't just pretend he'd missed it, no matter how appealing that sounded.

'Dad?!' A frantic, familiar voice yelled, cracking on the higher pitches. 'Dad? Maggie?'

Old affections squeezed Jason's heart like a sponge. Half the time he wanted to kill his Dad, but if something actually happened the old man he didn't know what he'd do. He followed Charlie's voice through the crowd, shoving aside lookie-lou's and dodging around the shocky and walking-wounded. 

She was at the safety line when he tracked her down, her fingers clenched around the mol-loc cord as she yelled at one of the guard. Her hair was tangled over her shoulders and she wearing an old pair of shorts and a worn-thin, over-sized t-shirt. It made her look a lot younger and more fragile.

'He's my Dad,' she said, spitting out the words like the guard just wasn't paying attention. 'We have to find him.'

'We will,' the guard said. 'When the reclamation crews get here. Now step back.'

Danny tugged at her arm. 'Charlie, come on,' he said. 'Maybe he got out already?'

She shrugged him off roughly. 'Then he'd be looking for us,' she said, voice clotty with unshed tears. 'He'd be here.'

'Step back,' the guard said, hand lifted to his disruptor.

Charlie shook her head, tears spilling down her face. 'No, he's my Dad,' she said, face twisting unhappily. 'He's in there. He needs us.'

'It's ok, sir,' Jason said, throwing his arm around Charlie and ducking his chin submissively to the guard. 'I got her, she's just upset.'

'Don't,' Charlie protested, rolling her shoulders. 'Get off me.'

Jason squeezed her in tight against his side, dropping his head to whisper in her ear. 'You any good to your Dad if he blows your nerves? Or Danny? Think he could take that?'

She didn't answer him, but she didn't fight him either as he dragged her away. Danny tagged along close on their heels, nervously recounting the morning hearing the sirens to getting to the site. He did that. 

'Why are you still here?' Charlie asked. Her voice cracked. 'What did you do?'

'What?'

She turned and shoved him hard. Her wet face twisted angrily as she hit him, clenched fists bouncing of his upraised arms and ribs. They weren't ineffectual slaps either, Jason felt them down to the bone.

'Did you do this? Was my Dad in there? Did Monroe tell you to do this?'

Jason grabbed her, twisting one arm behind her back and clapping her hand over his mouth. His fingers dug into her cheeks as she kicked him and flailed at with her free hand.

'Shut up,' he said through gritted teeth. 'You bring Monroe's name into this, you think it's gonna help?'  
Not for her, anyhow. Monroe liked Danny, but Charlie? Monroe was, at best, disinterested. And if she sent Gestalt sniffing around his door, that would change to pissed. Even Rachel might not be able to talk him down. 

Charlie gave him a scalding look, every judgement she'd ever made about him suspended in pretty blue eyes. Damn it, he was trying to keep her alive. He pulled her close, so he could put his lips next to her ear. 

'I didn't do this,' he said. 'I know what you think of Monroe, and me, but I wouldn't hurt you or Danny.'

She exhaled hard through her nose, air tickling his knuckles, and some of the tension left her body. Jason gingerly moved his hand, wincing as he saw the marks his fingers left.

'What about him?' she asked, tight-lipped and challenging.

If he lied to her, she'd probably start thumping him again. Jason shook his head. 'I'm not say he wouldn't,' he said carefully. 'But he's got no reason. He already had Rachel.'

Charlie looked like he'd slapped her, just for a second. He hated that. It made his tongue slip. 

'And he wanted to know what Ben was working on, not stop him,' he said. 

'What?'

Crap. 'What?'

She grabbed his jacket, yanking herself up onto her toes so she could glare into his face. 'What was my Dad working on? Why did Monroe care?'

Danny, sounding betrayed, 'You were spying on my Dad?'

'Monroe asked,' he said. 'Since I was down here. Didn't say why he cared.'

Charlie shook him. 'What was it.'

He grabbed her wrist and squeezed till she let go. Shoving her back a step he straightened his clothes and rubbed irritably at the blood on the side of his face. Charlie crossed her arms and stood her ground, glaring at him.

'Tell me,' she said. 'Or I start screaming Monroe did this until everyone hears me.'

'I don't know,' Jason said, exasperated. 'I'm not at the councils, am I? He's always kept an eye on you guys, made sure people steered clear.'

'Don't try and feed me that-'

'It's true,' Danny interrupted. He shrugged when Charlie glared at him. 'He said it's what Uncle Miles would have wanted.'

'Uncle Miles was a thug that didn't waste a day thinking about us,' Charlie snapped. She jabbed a finger at Jason. 'You stay away from us. You and him. Tell him that. I'm going to find my Dad.'  
She grabbed Danny's sleeve and stormed off, scrubbing impatiently at her face with her hand. Jason took a deep breath and rubbed his hand over his head, fingers skimming the tender knot. 

He pulled the e-ink back down from his wrist and linked to the privy-net, pinging Monroe directly. While he waited for an answer he fired off a quick data-packet to his Dad's service.

'Neville,' Monroe said. It made Jason twitch a little, the chip was embedded in his jaw. It bypassed the ear and dropped straight into his head. 'What happened?'

'I followed Matheson to his group,' he sub-vocalised. OK, so he hadn't told Charlie the whole truth about what he knew. 'I saw Foster and Pittman there, but Jaffe didn't come back or Beaumont. Looks like they didn't sort out their disagreement over involving Gestalt. Then the whole place came down. I only just got out...they didn't, not that I saw.'

There was a pause.

'Accident?'

Jason glanced casually over towards the hole, thinking about the way it dropped and the Gestalt agents crawling all over the place like ants.

'Doubt it,' he said. After a second he coughed and added, 'Charlie and Danny are here.'

'Keep them there,' Monroe said. 

He hung up. Jason sighed. He was used to lying to Charlie, she made it the only option, but he hated lying to Danny. Even though he'd been doing since the sickly little kid came to see Rachel and Jason's mom had told him 'go be friends with him'. It had always felt kind of scuzzy.

Still, it was his job. 

He bought two cups of hot soup from the vendor and went looking for the Mathesons.


	12. Chapter 12

The borrowed gear pinched and rubbed in unfamiliar places as Charlie stepped and twisted in the tangle of harness straps. It was old – not that anything the reclaim crews got was new – and patched with repurposed strips of vitirifed carbon-seal. She had to yank the buckles past the lumpy mends before the would seal, pinching at her thighs and over her breasts.

Her hair fell into her face as she worked. She made an aggravated face and pushed it back, fingers twisting it up tight and stuffing it itchily down her collar. The crew foreman finished his own prep and came over to check hers, face sour under a crop shaved down grey fuzz. He hadn't wanted to let her join the search; he wouldn't have, until a call from the Unders made him bow the neck.

Charlie supposed she owed Jason for that. She didn't care what Monroe did for her, she wouldn't owe him. Not ever, not for anything.

'You've worked rescue before?' the foreman asked. 

'I've worked reclaim since I was 18,' she said.

He grunted and hooked his fingers in the harness, yanking up roughly. The straps dug in painfully. Ow. Charlie kept the wince from her face.

'Rescue is different,' he said. 'That's new drift down there, nothing is stable. One wrong step and everything shifts. After the Quake, we lost whole teams because one man stepped on the wrong pebble. I gotta take you down, but I don't gotta bring you back up. So stay back and don't touch anything we didn't touch first. Understand?'

Charlie slapped his hand away. 'I just want to find my Dad.'

There might have been sympathy on the foreman's lined, hard face. It didn't linger. He shook his head and turned away.

'No,' he said. 'Your Dad's dead. You're looking for his corpse.'

That wasn't true. Charlie dragged a ragged scarf up over her mouth and nose with shaking hands. Her Dad would be – was – fine. She should checked on him last night, but it didn't matter because he wasn't dead.

'Charlie.' Danny ducked past the perimeter and caught her arm. 'Don't go, please.'

He'd gone pink and white from stress. It was too noisy to tell, but Charlie would bet there was already a whistle in his chest. She'd forgotten his respirator, she realised with a jolt, how could she be so stupid?

'Go home, Danny,' she told him.

He glared at her. 'You're going down a...a crumbling hole and I gotta go home?'

'Your chest-'

'I don't give a fuck about my chest!' he snapped. There was definitely a whistle. 'What if something happens to you, Charlie?'  
The foreman was calibrating the winch. There was no time for this. Charlie tugged her arm free from his grip.

'Then you go and live with Rachel,' she said, glancing over his shoulder to catch Jason's attention. He tossed his cup in a bin and came over, shoving through the gawking crowd, to grab Danny's shoulder with a companionable hand. Naked hand, she noted. 'Everybody's happy. Take him home, Jason? His chest is bothering-'

'That's not fair,' Danny said, ignoring Jason's tug. 'I never wanted this.'

Shame jabbed through Charlie at the hurt on his face. It wasn't his fault. None of this was his fault. She pulled him into a hug, squeezing tight enough that the straps had to be digging into him, and pressed a hard kiss to his temple.

'I know, I know,' she said, giving him one last squeeze before pushing him back a step so she could look at him. 'I have to do this though, I have to go get Dad.'

He managed a watery smile for her, but she could see in his eyes that he didn't believe it. Like the foreman, he thought Dad was dead. He wasn't going to say it though.

'Be careful.'

She smiled and ruffled his hair. 'I will.'

Jason shifted. 'I'll take care of him,' he said. 'Charlie-'

Whatever he was going to say didn't make it past his lips. He stepped forwards and grabbed her shoulders, tugging her into a fierce, lip-mashing kiss. For a second Charlie leant into it, remembering a time when his solid chest and faintly expensive smell had made her feel safe. Until she realised he was spying on her for Monroe and her mother.

The kiss softened into a gentle brush of lips and Jason sighed as he lifted his head. Dark eyes searched hers.

'I've missed -'

She punched him, knuckles catching him square on the nose. Blood splurted and he stumbled backwards, pawing his face and swearing. Charlie wiped her hand on her thigh.

'I told you last time,' she snapped. 'Don't touch me again. Just make sure my brother gets home.'

She yanked the seal on her collar up, squeezing the club of hair uncomfortably against the nape of her neck, and stalked over to the smirking foreman. He surprised her by slapping her on the back, making her stagger.

'Good girl,' he said. 'Stand up for yourself.'

He hooked her up to the sensors and pushed her into the grav-well. For a second she was just falling in the dark, air whistling by her ears and heart hammering.Then the link caught and the harness jerked her sideways and up, turning the fall into a drop. She still landed hard, knees buckling as her feet hit the black, slightly resilient substance of the Unders. 

No time to nurse sore knees though. She crabbed inelegantly to the side, rolling out of the way just as the next member of the crew dropped. Someone, she couldn't see who in the dark, hauled her to her feet, put a sifter her in her hand and shoved her into line.

She coughed and rubbed her eyes. The air was thick with dust, hanging in the static still of a blocked off chamber. Torches flicked on around her, illuminating narrow tunnels of the chamber. They stood in the rubble of the building, broken chunks of it scattered over the ground. Some of the rooms had been left intact, propped at angle against each other. Broken windows hung, swinging slowly, from the corners of buildings and piles of shards sparkled on the floor. A wandering torch beam found a crumple of blue syn-silk flowing from under a fallen wall. Curtains. Except curtains didn't have thin, outstretched arms. As the panicked thump of Charlie's heart slowed in her ears, she heard the groans and cries creaking around them. Someone – someones – were weeping softly in the darkness. 

The foreman landed last, inverting the well into a seal across the hole. He snapped a top-flight respirator on and started barking orders. 

'Get the lights up,' he said. His fingers jabbed at various faces. 'Dee, Millican – set up triage. Kinney, Berelli, Middlemiss – shore up the ceiling. The rest of you bastards, get to work. Someone get that girl, stop her killing someone.'

The crew scattered to their tasks with the certainty of practice. Charlie was left standing, daunted by the scale of it all. A short woman with curly brown hair cut short grabbed her elbow and dragged her forwards unceremoniously, rattling off instructions in a brusque, no-nonsense voice.

'We're rescue, not reclamation or salvage. Our job is to find the living and get 'em out. Corpses stay down here, stuff stays does here. Sensors on the grave-well know what you weigh – you're off going back you better be able to prove you took a giant dump, otherwise you're going to the camps. Got it.'

'Yeah,' Charlie said.

'You got no training, so you're basically our sniffer dog. Go in, find the bodies and if you get one that's still kicking then give a shout. Don't use your sifter until whoever you find is about to be smothered.'

'I've worked reclaim, and salvage,' Charlie said, annoyance prickling on her tongue. She worked her hand around the sweaty, worn-down handle of the sifter, thumb finding the trigger buttons. 'I'm not stupid.'

Brown eyes gave her a once over. 'You're down here aren't you?'

'My Dad was in the building when it fell.'

'So was everyone else. You don't leave people behind because they aren't your Dad.'

'I wouldn't do that.'

Another thoughtful look, slightly warmer this time. The woman stuck out a gloved hand. 'Nora.'

Charlie squeezed quickly. 'Charlie. Where do we start?'

Nora looked around at the ruins as the floodlights snapped on and her mouth twisted ruefully. 'Anywhere. Stick with me.' She tugged her respirator up, fingers pressing the seal tight around her mouth, and headed for the spill of blue fabric. The woman was dead, half her face smashed to bloody paste and the other untouched, her one eye wide and surprised looking.

Bile stung the back of Charlie's throat. It wasn't the first body she'd found, but by the time reclaim went in the bodies were dirt-scoured bone. Clean and finished with, not still wet and with faces.

Nora closed the one eye and tagged the nearby wall with a swipe of black paint, bowing her head for a second. She stood up, knees popping, and moved on. The next body they had to unearth from under a pile of crumpled metal and broken machinery, discovery a heavy-set man with a long shard of glastic driven through his eye. Blood dribbled down into his beard like tears. Another black tag.

After the first few bodies Charlie settled into the routine of it, working her way through rubble systematically. She found five bodies, five sets of eyes to close, and one survivor – a grey-haired woman with a lethe-junkie's filmed eyes and two broken legs. 

'Blue tag,' Nora said, marking it high. 'Make sure she's safe and leave her for the medics.'

Charlie's back ached from crouching and lifting and she was sweating sickly under the heat of the lights. She stopped long enough for a sip of flat water, licking still-dry lips, and glanced around. There were black tags everywhere, only a few blue. Someone could have already found her Dad, she'd not know. 

'Charlie,' a thin voice called. 'Charlie, help.'

It was Maggie. Charlie stuck the sifter in her belt and followed the voice, scrambling over crumbling bricks and crete. Behind her Nora yelled something at her, but she ignored it. Dirt dropped down on her, scratching at her eyes, and the ground shifted and slid beneath her feet. She fell, cracking her shoulder on a broken door, and dragged herself back up again. 

'Maggie?' she called, wiping her sleeve over her face. 'I can't find you. Maggie, please, you have to say something.'

'Here, Charlie. We're here.' 

The voice came from the left. Charlie turned and caught a flicker of something pale flapping through a crack in a broken, listing wall. She hurried over and squeezed Maggie's thin, bloody fingers. Through the crack she saw a slice of Maggie's face. Her face was bruised and her lip split and swollen.

'Maggie, is my Dad with you?'

'Yes,' Maggie said, pulling her hand back in. Her voice faltered. 'It's not good, Charlie, he's hurt.'

It was the voice people used to use about Danny. The 'don't get hopes up' voice. Charlie swallowed and grabbed her sifter off her belt, thumbing it high. She could feel the itch of it against her palm as it powered up.

'Get back from the wall, Maggie,' she said. 'Take Dad with you.'

Maggie looked confused but did as she was told, shifting away from the crack and scrabbling around behind it. After a few seconds she said, 'We're in the left hand corner.'

Charlie set the dispersal to wide and crouched down, pressing the sifter against the dirt. She turned it on and counted to ten, letting the ion-net spread under the wall Nora caught up with her.

'You're going to bring the whole place down,' Nora said, grabbing her forearm.

'It's my Dad.'

'You'll kill us all.'

'I won't,' Charlie said, tightening her grip on the sifter. She gave Nora a pleading look. 'Please? He's hurt.'

It took a second, but Nora gave up. She let go of Charlie and scrambled to her feet, yelling for the rest of the crew to clear the area. They scatter quickly. Across the chamber the foreman yelled for them to wait, but he was too late. Charlie reeled the ion-net back in and pulled a sealed sheet of dirt from under the wall.

It dropped two feet and then fell forwards, just missing Charlie as she jumped back. Dirt shifted and slid on impact, making Charlie stagger to keep her feet and bringing more rubble crashing down. But she could get to her Dad.

Maggie had dragged Dad under a battered metal table and was hunched over him, her arms wrapped around his head. There had been someone else in the room when it fell, but when the room had sheared apart so had they. Only their legs had made it down this far, a tangle of intestines spooling out over the floor. Charlie tried not to look as she scrambled over to her Dad, dropping to her knees next to him and stroking his face.

'Dad?' she said. Bruised lids opened and he stared at her for a second, eyes fogged with confusion. It slowly cleared as he recognised her and he groped for her hand. 

'Charlie,' he sighed, blood staining his teeth. 

'It's ok,' she said. 'Don't talk, the medics are coming.'

He squeezed her hand. 'You have to get Miles.'

'Uncle Miles?' Charlie said, startled. Dad never talked about his brother, not since Rachel left. It wasn't important now though, Charlie reminded herself. 'Don't worry about that, Dad, you can take it to him later.'

He smiled regretfully and coughed, blood bubbles popping on his lips. 'I don't think I can, sweetheart,' he said. 'I'm so sorry. Get it from him. The key. He has...the key.'

Maggie gasped. 'He has it?' she said. 'All this time, everything we've done, and you gave it to him.'

Charlie glared at her. She didn't care what Dad had done, or who had what. He needed to stay calm and just conserve his strength. He needed to stay.

'The key-' he said.

'I'll get him,' Charlie promised. She'd no idea how. Nobody had seen Uncle Miles since he parted ways with Monroe. It was one more reason to hate Monroe as far as Charlie was concerned, since he'd probably killed her uncle. If she had to find his dessicated corpse in some Goblin Market dump, she would. 'But you have to stay with me, Dad. Just stay with me.'

He reached up and cupped her face in a rough, weak hand. 'You're so much like Rachel,' he said. Usually Charlie would reject the comparison, but she swallowed the words to fester in her stomach. 'Brave and beautiful.'

His hand trembled and dropped as he coughed again, spasms racking his body. Blood sprayed from his lips, splashing Charlie's sleeve, and then he went limp. Charlie wailed and balled her fist in his jacket, shaking his limp body.

'Dad. Daddy, please?' she begged. 'Please don't leave me.'

It was too late.

Maggie pried her fingers loose and dragged her away from his body, getting them both to their feet. She cupped Charlie's face in her hands, making her look at her. 

'Do you know where you Uncle Miles is?' she asked.

'I don't care,' Charlie said, voice catching. 'My Dad's....he's gone.'

Maggie sniffed, tears sliding down her bruised cheeks, but didn't loosen her grip. 'I know, but this is important Charlie. It could be the most important thing in Ruin, it could change everything. It's -'

She stopped, teeth clacking together, as Nora and the medics scrambled into the room. They checked her over quickly, flashing lights in her eyes and wrapping a foil blanket around her shoulders. As they loaded her onto the stretcher she held her hand out to Charlie, eyes pleading.

'Go with your mum,' Nora said, pushing her. 'The boss wants you out anyhow. I'll take care of your Dad.'


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was an interlude that fits into the continuity now. I should have another Charlie chapter shortly.

Bass over-rode the relay and dropped orders to two of his men to go and toss the Mathesons' flat. It was unlikely Ben would have left anything informative there, but better safe than sorry. He sat up, kicking the sheets back, and reached for his clothes.

The brunette still in the bed made a disgruntled noise and crawled over to wrap herself around him, hot and soft and clingy. Her hands splayed over his chest, peacock-coloured Ms marked over the taut skin. She wasn't inked-in to the network, but some of the hangers-on had taken to wearing his mark in colours.

He rubbed his thumb over the bar of the M and she bit his shoulder. 'You aren't going are you?' she purred. 'It's still early.'

'No,' he said. 'It's not. I've family business.'

She stiffened and peeled herself off him, yanking the sheets back up to her tits in a huff. Her bright red lips twisted into a sour pucker. 'I don't know why you don't just get rid of that cold cow,' she said.

Bass pulled his body-suit on. He had a few more scars, but 15 years hadn't softened his body much. In his job he couldn't afford to get soft. He pulled on his boots and twisted around, grabbing her throat and pushed her down into the pillows. She choked and grabbed at his hands, breaking her nails on the slick nanoweave. Bass waited until he saw real panic in her eyes before loosening his grip.

'Don't insult my wife,' he said. 'Don't even talk about my wife.'

She swallowed, he felt her throat move under his fingers, and her mouth trembled into an anxious smile. 'I didn't mean anything, love,' she said, reaching up to stroke his face. He moved his head back, watching her coldly. 'It's just, I love you.'

'Do you think I care?' he let go of her throat and stood up, unhooking his chair from the back of a chair. 'I'm going to need this space back. Move your stuff out by the end of the week.'

He left her sobbing dramatically in the bed, calling him a fool, and headed down to his buggy. Skinny gutters-brats, all wearing the marks of their kid-gangs, mobbed him with promises they'd watched his car and had information he'd want. He tossed out a few chits and growled at them when they kept crowding him. Remembering their self-preservation instincts they scattered.

Bass got in the buggy and programmed the route home into the dash, fingers sliding over the dashboard. It felt rough, coated with grit even all the way down here. The car hummed to life under him and he sat back, tapping his fingers against his thigh as he watched the black, curving buildings flash by.

He'd bought a stack of rooms in what passed for an elite district in the Gutters. It was where the wealthy agrophobics lived. The slick, curved walls of the alien city had been plastered over and painted until it looked like a surreal idea of human architecture. Bass had stripped it all off his property, leaving it stark and unadorned.

Honesty, of a sort.

The car parked itself and Bass went inside, pausing to talk briefly with the M-inked guards in the hall. Julia had been by, apparently. For tea. He knew that wasn't true. Julia was plotting something, she always was, it was just a question of whether or not it would benefit him.

His wife, one guard told him uncomfortably, had retired for the evening.

Bass gave the man a cool look. 'And?'

'Nothing, sir,' the guard said quickly, staring at the wall over Bass' shoulder. He looked sweatily uncomfortable. Good.

Bass left him there and strode down the hall to the bedroom, a pass of his hand over the sensor making the door pop open. A quick command brought the lights up, filling the dark-walled room with dim golden light.

On the bed, Rachel stirred sleeping in response and draped a slim arm over her eyes. Her hair trailed over the pillows in silky, pale gold tangles and the soft curve of her mouth was bare-pink and vulnerable. Bass perched on the edge of the mattress and trailed his fingers along her arm from elbow to the soft, creases of her palm.

Her fingers twitched. She was awake, he could always tell, but if she opened her eyes they were going to argue. Bass' mouth twitched wryly and he leant over to press a kiss to her temple, lips lingering of the scented skin. Maybe he was a fool.

'Rachel,' he said. 'There's been another collapse Dirt-side.'

She flinched up, propping herself on her elbow. Old fear swam through her liquid blue eyes as she stared up at him. 'Charlie?' she asked, voice tight. 'Danny?'

Bass shook his head and stroked her hair back from her face, strands sliding through his fingers as he tucked it behind her ear. He let relief soften her face, before he added the one name she'd not mentioned. 'It's Ben, he's dead.'

She shuddered and closed her eyes, lips creasing into a grieving line. Just for a second, fingers tightening around the nape of her neck, he wanted to hurt her. Even if it was hatred, at least he'd be the only thing in her mind. A tear squeezed between her lashes and ran down her cheek. He wiped it away with his thumb.

'After everything he didn't do, you're crying for him?'

Rachel took a ragged breath. 'Don't, Bass,' she said. 'He's my children's father, he was my husband. He was your friend?'

'There's a lot of past in that statement,' he pointed out.

She squirmed back from him and tugged the sheet up, wiping her eyes on the hemmed corner. 'Where have you been?' she asked.

'Do you care?'

'You don't get to play at being jealous,' she said, 'when you've been with your mistress.'

He leant over her, propping his arm on the bed, and kissed her cheek, tasting salt.

'I'll get rid of her if you ask.'

'You'll get rid of her in a month anyhow.'

His mouth twitched in wry acknowledgement of that. She pushed him out of the way and got out of bed, reaching for her dressing gown. 'I should call Charlie,' she said, voice wobbling between concern and hope. 'They'll need me. I should go-'

'No,' he said.

She turned to stare at him, hands stilled on her belt. 'Bass, Sebastian, please? They're my children.'

He shook his head and looked at his nails, rubbing at a ridge. 'It's too dangerous, you're my wife and people know they can hurt me through you. And she won't want to see you.'

'That's cruel.'

'I know.'

'Sebastian-'

He put his boots up on the bed. 'You know my conditions. Give me Ben's codes, Rachel.'

She lifted her chin. 'Give me a divorce,' she said.

Technically, she shouldn't need his agreement for that. However, none of the Gutters judges wanted to stop the generous flow of chits into their pockets.

'No.'

'Go to hell,' she told him and stormed into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.


	14. Chapter 14

The medic checked Maggie over as they reached the grav-well, peeling her eyelids back and flashing a light at her pupils. 'Pain?' he asked, pressing a gloved hand hard to her gut and hips. The pressure made Maggie hiss, her fingers tightening around Charlie's hand.

'Cuts and bruises,' she said dismissively, although she was white around the lips. 'Nothing serious.'

The medic checked her eyes again. 'Why don't you leave diagnosis to the doctors?'

'I am a doctor,' Maggie said, pushing his hand away. 'Just get me out of here.'

'Fine,' the medic said, flicking the light off and dropping it into his pocket. He stepped back and gestured for the waiting crew to get her ready. 'On your head be it.'

Charlie got out of the way while the crew strapped Maggie down, fastening the sensors over her ankles, knees and shoulders. Through the floating dust she could see Nora and her crew carrying sealed bags across the rubble.

She sniffed and wiped her face while no-one was looking. Once Maggie was ready, the crew shunted her into the queue for the well – displacing the dead and behind a shock-blank boy with a bloody gauze pad over one eye – and Charlie went back over to crouch next to her.

'What did Dad mean about Uncle Miles having the key?' she asked.

Maggie shook her head, pale curls catching in the foil folds of the blanket, and grabbed Charlie's jacket to pull her down. 'You mustn't tell anyone about that,' she whispered intently. Beads of sweat stood out on her forehead and upper lip. 'They mustn't find the key.'

'What key?' Charlie asked. 

The crew grabbed the boy and swung him up into the grav well, the stretcher spinning as the sensors oriented. He started to scream and kick as he was pulled upwards, clawing at his straps One popped free, dropping back to the ground with a brittle, final-sounding crack, and his shoulder dropped.

'They key to everything,' Maggie said. 'The key to fixing all this.'

The boy wrenched off another sensor and dropped, the pop of dislocating joints loud in the silence. He dangled for a second, swinging wildly, and then dropped as the grav-well recalibrated. The scream echoed and cut off with a thump and a wet crack as he hit the ground.

Instinct pushed Charlie to her feet and she ran over, hooking her arms under his. He screamed, piercing enough to make her wince, as she yanked on his injured arm. It would hurt worse if she didn't move him, though. Once the well recalibrated it would start trying to lift him again, by his dislocated arm and leg. She'd seen it happen once, on a reclaim under Cross Dome, and the guy's arm had ripped off like a dolls.

She yanked him backwards, toppling them both out of the well's field. They handed on the rubble, broken bricks digging into Charlie's hip and shoulder. The medics pulled the boy away, pressing a tranq against his throat, and the forearm hauled Charlie to her feet.

'Not bad,' he said, slapping her shoulder. 'Your Dad?'

Charlie swallowed and glanced over to Maggie. She was being swung into the grav-well while the unconscious boy got strapped up again. 

'You were right,' she said, voice cracking. 'He was dead.'

'Sorry,' he said, giving her shoulder a rough squeeze. 'Go on, get up there. If you ever want to work rescue, get in touch. I'll put in a word in.'

Two days ago, Charlie would have been so happy with the offer. Rescue paid better, and it would be employment – not work detail. Today all she could manage was a tight smile as she trudged over to take her turn on the grav-well.

She felt a flicker of sympathy for the boy as the harness yanked at her. It felt like falling, but in the wrong direction, and it made her ears spin. Hands grabbed her at the top and swung her out, sending her sliding over the pavement.

Ow. The harness was digging into places leather and metal shouldn't go. Charlie tugged the straps loose as she scrambled up, skin itching as the blood rushed back. The boy with the bloody eye was lying on tarp and the medics were all clustered around...Maggie.

Charlie stripped the harness off, letting it fall, and ran over. She shoved her way through the gawkers until she could see Maggie. The older woman was twitching and thrashing against her restraints. Her head was thrown back, sweaty curls squashed against her skull and neck corded, and her eyes were rolled back in her head. The whites were...bleeding.

'What happened,' she asked, grabbing at one of the medic's elbow. 'She was all right.'

He shrugged her off. 'Obviously not,' he said. 'We're running her to hospital. You can find her there.'

'What hospital?' Charlie asked.

'Gestalt,' the medic said. For the first time, Charlie noticed the Gestalt logo on his jumpsuit, the bright colours masked by blood and dirt. He pushed her back. 'You can see her there, if you want to see her again.'

Charlie dropped back a step. 'Maggie doesn't have a benefit,' she said. 'Her contract expired.'

They drove a needle into the vein straining on Maggie's throat and snapped an oxygen mask over her mouth, pulling it tight. IV patches were already glued to her arm, from wrist to halfway up her forearm.

'Our database says she does,' the medic said. 'Maybe it's a mistake. Want me to check? Most people would rather their friend lived, but if you want...'

Charlie hesitated, chewing the inside of her lip. Maggie had worked for Gestalt, maybe there was some provision for ongoing care. Although she'd never used it before, not even when she'd broken her arm...

'I don't know. I-,' she stammered.

The medic rolled his eyes. 'Let me know when you do,' he said. 'We'll be at the hospital.'

They hoisted Maggie up and carried her to the waiting transport, transferring her to the jolt-proof sling. Charlie trailed after them, increasingly convinced that something was wrong. What could she do though? They were the only medics here, and Maggie looked like she was dying.

The medic she'd been talking up into the back. Charlie grabbed at his leg, twisting her hand in the tough fabric of his jumpsuit. 'What's your name.'

He kicked her in the shoulder, knocking her back a step. 'None of your business.'

The transport zipped off, spitting up dust in a cloud behind it. Charlie ran after it, but it was too fast. She gave up and doubled over, hands braced on her thighs and breath sobbing in and out of her chest. Everyone was gone. She didn't know what to do. 

Sobbing for breath turned into real sobbing, wet, aching noises pulling out of her throat. Charlie's knees gave and she collapsed onto the road, folding herself around the knot in her stomach. She wanted her Dad. He'd know what to do.

A warm hand touched her back. 'Charlie?' Nora crouched down beside her, hanging her arm over her shoulders. 'Are you OK.'

Charlie sniffed back snot and wiped her face on her sleeve, hiccuping as she tried to stop crying. She couldn't. 'They took Maggie, Danny's gone and my Dad...my Dad is dead,' she said. 'So not so much.'

Nora gave her a rag to wipe her face on and sat with Charlie until she could get up. 'Come on,' she said. 'I'll get you home.'

There was no-one there when she got there. Charlie called Danny's name and checked his room – finding his medicines gone and his favourite jacket – but she didn't really expect to find him. With Dad gone, Rachel finally the excuse for taking Danny away. There was a note.

'Please call mom – let me know you and Dad are OK'

Charlie sat down on his bad, cheap springs creaking, and hugged his pillow. Half the time, she wanted to kill him – for forgetting his meds, for talking to Rachel, for thinking farting was funny – but she wished he was here right now, her stupid, forgiving, smelly little brother. He was all she had left...other than this 'uncle' she was supposed to find.

'I went out and got you some caf,' Nora said, leaning around the door. Stripped of her heavy work-gear she was shorter than Charlie and better built – not as lanky. 

'Thanks,' Charlie said, putting Danny's pillow behind her. She accepted the caf and sipped, tongue curling as the bitterness filled her mouth and the chemical kicked her brain to buzzing. Wrapping her hands around the cup, heat soaking into her fingers, she nodded at Nora. 'I'm ok.   
Thanks.'

Nora quirked her mouth and sat down on Charlie's cot, leaning forward to catch Charlie's eye. 'Mike, the foreman, he said your Dad was dead when you got there.'

Charlie nodded.

'When I talked to you, you said he was hurt.'

'I was wrong.'

Nora nodded, curls falling over her face. 'And the ambulance? Gestalt taking your Mom, that was an accident too.'

'She's not my mom,' Charlie said. 'My mom left. Maggie was Dad's girlfriend.'

'And she's ok?'

Charlie gulped another mouthful of caf. 'I don't know.'

'Maybe I can help,' Nora said. She rolled her sleeve up and held her arm out, flexing her fingers. Black-stained scar tissue welted around her wrist, ridged and marked. Slaughtered e-ink. 'I know – I knew – some people.'

'You work for Monroe,' Charlie spat, bolting upright. 'Get out. Get out of my house!'

Nora recoiled on the bed, eyes widening. 'Charlie-'

'Didn't Jason give you the low-down?' Charlie spat. 'I don't want Monroe or Rachel around me. I don't care what they want.'

She lunged forwards and grabbed Nora's shirt, man-handling her up of the bed and shoving her towards the door. They got as far as the hall and Nora broke away from her, backing away and fending Charlie off with both hands.

'Stop it, Charlie,' she said. 'I worked for Monroe when I was a stupid kid. My Dad got me out – that's why the link is burned out. I'm the last person who would help Monroe. If you're in trouble, though, I can help you.'

Charlie hesitated, it made sense. The scar was the price of leaving Monroe's service, Jason had told her that once. It was agony, the e-ink thrashing the nervous system in its death throes. Maybe...

The panic in Maggie's voice echoed in her head. 'Don't tell anyone.' And then Gestalt had taken her away, so maybe she'd been right to be scared. Charlie shook her head and yanked the door open. 'I don't need your help. Get out.'

Nora hesitated.

'Get out!'

Nora grimaced and left. On the doorstep she turned around to say something, but Charlie swung the door shut in her face. Leaning back against it she took a deep breath. She'd find her uncle herself, and then she'd get Maggie and Danny back. They could have the key if they wanted – she didn't care.


End file.
